Telescopic Contact Lens With Switchable Magnification To Help AMD Patients

cylonlover writes "Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness among older adults in the western world. Unfortunately, conventional optical aids provide little help for a retina which has lost the acuity of its central area. Now a team of multinational researchers led by University of California, San Diego Professor Joseph Ford has created a telescopic contact lens that can switch between normal and magnified vision to offer AMD patients a relatively unobtrusive way to enhance their vision."

Comments

AMD patients?

[rossdee]

I didnt realize that AMD was a disease - I guess i should of bought a machine with Intel Inside(TM)

Oh please

[Sparticus789]

Telescopic contact lens + Linux-powered rifle scope = I can finally become Hawkeye. Minus the abs.

Re:Oh please

[Sparticus789]

Hawkeye's power is not in the bow. His power is the ability to shoot or throw anything with precision. Telescopic contact lenses would give me enhanced eyesight and allow me to find targets at greater distance than normal. The Linux rifle scope would allow me to tag any target and hit it. The bow is merely his preferred weapon.

Re:Oh please

[Sparticus789]

Did you miss the article about the rifle scope?

Watch out for dirty old men

[arcite]

Zooming in for the breast shot! ;) yes I know, we'll all be dirty old men one day.

AMD patients?

[ArcadeMan]

But what about Intel pat oh wait, you beat me to it.

It needs glasses???

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need glasses to switch between magnification and no magnification, then why not simply make the glasses do the magnification?

This seems to be rather silly in my book.

Now, the implantable zoomming replacement eye lense that costs $25,000 an eye they dismissed as too expensive, no THAT seems worth talking about.

Re:It needs glasses???

[skids]

Because... REASONS!

No really, it causes issues with the brain when the lens does not move with the eye. Like vertigo. Yes I RTFA.

Yes but...

[Dusty101]

... does it make The Noise from "The Six Million Dollar Man" when it zooms in?

Any reason these have to be corrective only?

[Mal-2]

Is there some fundamental reason why these are only useful to someone with damaged vision? Since they are not implanted and have no moving parts, they shouldn't be much worse than regular contact lenses, which some people wear for purely cosmetic reasons. The biggest problem I can see would be the light loss from the polarizing glasses. Two stops is significant, especially at night, and the ability of the iris to compensate will be hampered by the size of the central pupil in the contact lens.

Re:Bad FA

[theshowmecanuck]

You got it wrong by not trying to understand how a telescope helps. That would make you the moron. They put a telescope on the cornea as a way to distribute the light reflected from the object of interest to areas of retina around the damaged macula that isn't damaged. It is a way to allow functioning parts of the eye to be used to see things in the centre. My mother had this disease and it would have been awesome if she would have been able to use something like this (the idea came to late, even the implantable ones) for her.