A bionic eye implant is now allowing a blind man to see the outlines of his wife after 10 years in darkness.
The implant, called a retinal prosthesis, consists of a small electronic chip that is placed at the back of the eye to send visual signals directly into the optic nerve. This bypasses the damaged cells in the man's retina.
The bionic eye doesn't have enough electrodes to recreate the details of human faces, but for the first time since he lost his vision, the man can make out the outlines of people and things, and walk without a cane.
After years of biotechnology advancements people who have gone blind from eye diseases like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa have hope to get their vision back by Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System that can help blind person see the outlines of persons and things around through bionic eye implant.
Both the eye diseases actually damage the photoreceptors in human eyes. The photoreceptors has the function to identify light patterns reflected by any object, convert them to nerve impulses and then pass to the brain. The brain then identifies these light patterns in several images. The bionic eye implant consists of a system that bypasses the damaged photoreceptors enabling blind person to see again.
Allen Zderad started to have vision problems about 20 years ago ultimately resulting into retinitis pigmentosa, making him blind. Zderad who went into blindness lost his job and wasn’t able to support his family any more. The results of his damaged retina were that he was unable to see anything or anyone around him except very bright light. Still in darkness all around him he continued to work as woodworking, relying on his sense of touch. But the biggest grief for old man was the thoughts of not seeing his family including ten grandchildren and his Carmen, his wife.
Date Published: 11 June 2015
