Color Blindness: How it affects life?
Color Blindness does not refer to permanent blindness or black and white vision. It is often know as Color Vision Deficiency interchangeable with Color Blindness. Color Blindness is a group of condition that affects the perception of the color. It does not represent any type of blindness but is a deficiency in which the person is not able to see color in a normal way. Color Blindness is an inherited condition that affects males more frequently than females and is associated with difficulty in identifying the color: Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. 1 in 12 mens and 1 in 200 womens are affected with color blindness.
Coming to the question, what is the cause of color blindness? There is not one but several cause of color blindness. For majority of the people, with color vision deficiency is present due to genetic factors and is inherited from their mothers.
Why does Color Blindness occur?
In the retina that receives light, there are two types of cells that detect light, known as rods and cones. The functions of rods are to detect only light and dark and are also sensitive to low light levels whereby cones cells functions to detect color and are concentrated near the center of the vision. There are three types of cones that see the color: red, green and blue. The brain uses the input from these cone cells to determine the color perception. When one or more of the color cone cells are absent, not working, or detect a different color than normal color blindness is likely to happen. When all three color cones are absent severe color blindness occurs, when one cone cells do not work right out of three cone cells present mild color blindness is likely to occur. It detects a different color than normal.
Other factors that contribute to color blindness are:
o Parkinson’s disease (PD): It is a neurological disorder where light-sensitive nerve cells in the retina may be damaged and does not function properly.
o Cataracts: This involves the clouding in the natural lens, which leads to blurred vision. However cataract can be resolved by surgery and restore bright color vision. The process of surgery involves removing of natural lenses and replacing it with an artificial intraocular lens.
o Medications: Not all medications reduce vision, but yes few drugs such as Tiagabine an anti-seizure drug reduces color vision about 41%. This effect is not permanent but exists till the course of the drug is administered. Also the drug hydroxychloroquine used for treatment of patients of Rheumatoid Arthritis is a factor for color blindness
o Ageing: Ageing is a process that affects the vision due to several factors such as disease, medication and etc.
Types of Color Blindness
o Red-green color blindness: There are four types of Color Blindness:
ü Deuteranomaly is the most common type of red-green color blindness. It makes green look red. This type is mild and doesn’t usually get in the way of normal activities.
ü Protanomaly makes red look greener and less bright. This type is mild and usually doesn’t get in the way of normal activities.
ü Protanopia and deuteranopia both make you unable to tell the difference between red and green at all.
o Blue-yellow color blindness: This , the rarely seen type of color blindness makes it hard to tell the difference between blue and green, and between yellow and red.
There are 2 types of blue-yellow color blindness:
ü Tritanomaly makes it hard to tell the difference between blue and green, and between yellow and red.
ü Tritanopia makes you unable to tell the difference between blue and green, purple and red, and yellow and pink. It also makes colors look less bright.
o Complete color blindness: This refers to inability to see colors at all, which is also called as monochromacy and is quite uncommon.
Signs and Symptoms
The symptom of Color Blindness ranges from mild to severe. The symptoms are mostly mild in majority of the affected population and are completely unaware of having it. The symptoms include the following:
o Difficulty in seeing colors and the brightness of colors in usual way.
o Unable to differentiate between shades of same color. This is observed mostly in red and green, blue and yellow.
o Color Blindness does not affect the sharpness of the vision.
When a person is not able to see any color and see everything in grey, the condition is known as Achromatopsia.
Who is at risk for color blindness?
In comparison to females, males are at much higher risk of being born with color blindness. Females are the carriers but are rarely affected. Also disease such as: Glaucoma diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Chronic Alcoholism, Leukemia, and Sickle cell anemia.
How Color Blindness Is Tested?
Color Blindness is easy to test as it does not require a doctor’s support. The set of images provided called the Ishihara color plates is the most common and reliable test.
The test involves identifying the numbers in the color plates. A person with color blindness will not be able to read at the number. The condition is uncommon and it’s rarely serious. Testing positive is no reason to panic.
Treatment for Color Blindness.
In recent studies at University of Washington, gene therapy has shown effective result in the treatment of colorblindness. Gene therapy has shown a promising result in animals but however it cannot be considered for humans until it’s proven to be safe.
Currently, there is no cure for Color Blindness, but few coping strategies are available to help the person function better in a color — oriented world.
Lenses for the colourblind
Special Kind of lenses are available to enhance color perception, which are either contact lenses or eyeglass lenses form. One of the mostly used colorblind glasses are developed by EnChroma. The tinted EnChroma’s color blind glasses include patented light-filtering technology to give people with the common forms of color blindness the ability to see the broad spectrum of bright colors
