How EnChroma’s Glasses
Correct Color-Blindness
People with red-green color-blindness can suddenly
discriminate between colors they couldn’t see before.
By Ryan Cross, MIT Technology Review
June 27, 2016 -- Two colorblind brothers, Jimmy and Jace Papenhausen, were in for a surprise when their parents bought them a new pair of glasses. Jimmy’s dad was holding a handful of balloons, asking his son to name the colors. “Orange?” Jimmy answered. “It’s green,” his father replied.
Correct Color-Blindness
People with red-green color-blindness can suddenly
discriminate between colors they couldn’t see before.
By Ryan Cross, MIT Technology Review
June 27, 2016 -- Two colorblind brothers, Jimmy and Jace Papenhausen, were in for a surprise when their parents bought them a new pair of glasses. Jimmy’s dad was holding a handful of balloons, asking his son to name the colors. “Orange?” Jimmy answered. “It’s green,” his father replied.
Jimmy was then handed a pair of
color-blindness glasses from EnChroma
while onlookers held up balloons and a boldly colored beach towel. As seen in
this heartwarming
video, Jimmy was moved to tears. He handed the glasses off to his
brother Jace, who was similarly overwhelmed. “It’s so bright,” he said.
They might look like sunglasses, but
EnChroma’s product actually boosts the saturation of red and green light. That
helps to improve color vision in people with red-green color-blindness, the most common
color vision deficiency, affecting up to one in 12 men and one in 200
women (a true lack of [any] color vision is very rare).
[video of the two brothers trying on the glasses – you must check this
out!] https://youtu.be/m1X0QTTtPmc ]
Most people have three types of
color-sensing cones in their eyes: red, green, and blue. The wavelengths of
light that these three cones absorb have overlapping regions. Color-blindness
is often a result of a malfunctioning cone that causes wavelengths to overlap
even more, resulting in poor color discrimination. The EnChroma glasses use a
filter to cut out these overlapping wavelengths, allowing for a clearer
distinction between colors, especially red and green.
The invention was derived from the work of
Don McPherson, who earned his PhD in glass science at Alfred University .
McPherson was trying to design protective eye wear for doctors performing laser
surgeries. It wasn’t until
he let a friend try on the glasses during a game of ultimate
Frisbee that he realized the technology’s true potential. McPherson’s friend
just happened to be color-blind, and the glasses gave both of them a shock.
That serendipity led to NIH-funded research
for helping the color-blind. Early versions of the glasses were unsatisfactory,
so McPherson
began working with mathematician and computer scientist Andrew Schmeder to
help optimize the glasses. In 2010, they cofounded EnChroma, and the first
pair of glasses was released in 2012. EnChroma’s glasses cost around $269 for
children and $349 for adults.
EnChroma’s website makes it clear that
their glasses will not cure color-blindness, much as reading glasses won’t
cure farsightedness. But a true cure could someday come in the form of gene
therapy to deliver functional genes to the color-responsive cells in the
retina. Jay Neitz, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington ,
demonstrated the feasibility of this idea in monkeys back in 2009. And last
year he teamed up with Avalanche Biotechnologies to try to move this
technology into clinical trials.
Another caveat with EnChroma’s glasses is
that they are not recommended for the color vision tests required
for certain jobs, including operating ships, planes, and public
transportation. A competitor, the
ColorCorrection System, calls itself “the world’s only guaranteed
color blind treatment that can ensure a passage of the Ishihara Color Test,”
one of the most common such tests.
EnChroma is careful to avoid making such
claims, but this also highlights the limited use of the product. Some people
may find the price tag unjustifiable, but for others the dramatic effects are
more than worth it.
(Read more: New York Times,
NPR,
“Color-Blind
Monkeys Get Full Color Vision”)
It's great to see these kind of assistive technologies helping people with vision problems. Similar to these glasses for color blindness, an Israeli startup develops revolutionary assistive technology products for the blind. The camera attachment reads almost any text with a point of finger and relays it to the wearer discreetly in real time. These artificial vision powered glasses for visual disability aims to help people with vision problems achieve increased independence.
ReplyDeleteIt is a startling video, to me, because of the shocked reaction the color blind have to seeing all the colors for the first time. They are overwhelmed.
ReplyDelete