Treatments Available For Color Blindness

Can color blindness be cured?

No and Maybe. The answer lies in determining the cause of color blindness. Most color-blind people are born with a partial or complete lack of cones in the retina.  The cones help distinguish the colors red, green, and blue. There is currenty no cure for inherited color blindness.

Color vision problems that are acquired later in life are usually a result of disease, injury, substance abuse, or toxic effects of drugs or chemicals.

Color vision defects from a disease are less understood than congenital color vision problems.

Inherited Color Blindness

99% of color-blind males and females are color blind as a result of defective genetics on the X-chromosome. To cure inherited color blindness would require some form of gene repair to the damaged chromosome.

• Gene therapy

Gene therapy experiments at the University of Washington show promise in curing red-green blindness.  Experimental Gene therapy has successfully allowed red-green color-blind monkeys to see new colors that they have never seen before. Scientists used a computerized test for human color blindness similar to well-known test books where colored numbers or symbols are hidden in a pattern of dots. Before treatment, all of the monkeys were trained to touch a colored patch located among the gray dots in the pattern. A Correct choice was rewarded with a small amount of white grape juice and a positive dinging sound. Following an incorrect choice, no juice was delivered, and a negative buzzer tone sounded. Similar to color-blind humans, the monkeys could not distinguish red or green, but following treatment, they passed the test for all colors.

While gene therapy has shown success in color-blind monkeys, it has not been conducted on humans. There is no way to know whether it will work in humans. There could be side-effects from the therapy, or adverse psychological effects, or other complications.

TREATMENTS FOR ACQUIRED COLOR BLINDNESS

Acquired Color Blindness

If color blindness is happening because of another health problem, your doctor can treat the condition that’s causing the problem, which may or may not cure the color blindness. Color blindness brought on by a specific disease frequently affects both eyes in a different manner. A color vision defect that is caused by disease usually gets worse over time. Acquired color vision loss can be the result of damage to the retina or optic nerve.

CORRECTIVE DEVICES

If color blindness is causing problems with everyday tasks, there are corrective lenses, technology apps, and aids for visual impairment that can help, including:

Technology applications

Several apps for smart phones have been developed that can assist a person with a color vision problem, but most are not designed for real-time applications and functionality. Wearable augmented reality devices such as Google Glasses, have paved the way for wearable systems to help people with color vision deficiency. Here are 10 of the most helpful for persons with color blindness.

• Color Detection Apps

Colorful is an app for mobile devices that provides a fast, easy, and handy way of recognizing colors. The app can assist a color-blind person to detect colors via a live video feed from a mobile phone’s camera, a photograph that was taken previously or saved from an email and even photos from various social networks.

 and uses your phone’s camera as a lens through. It’s an app that helps colorblind people distinguish color combinations that they would usually have trouble telling apart. It replaces complicated color combinations, like red and green, with more easily distinguishable combinations, like pink and green.

HueVue:  HueVue is a color tool for the iPhone that helps people with color vision deficiencies to identify, match, and coordinate colors.

Colorblind Helper helps you quickly find out what colors others see and what they call them. Colorblind Helper has an easy-to-use interface. There is no more wondering whether you’re wearing a green tie with a blue shirt.

“Chromatic Glass” divides the color spectrum into segments so that such colors do not overlap depending on the type of color deficiency from which a user suffers. It adjusts lightness and chromaticity of color segments in real-time to further help users to identify colors.

ColorDetect: The iPhone app gives you the possibility to detect colors in real-time using augmented reality technology. It provides you with color codes, which is quite helpful for design jobs. ColorDetect identifies 151 colors and their names using augmented reality technology.

DanKam: this augmented reality tool makes it easier for the color blind to identify colors on their phones.

Examine clothes color iPhone: This app is basically for blind or color-blind people, and it helps them to select the color and pattern on clothes by themselves. This app will speak the color name and design on the clothes after taking a picture of any color.

• Object Identification

TapTapSee: This is an app that helps visually impaired people identify objects around them. It can determine the object and speak to you quickly.

Aipoly Vision: an object and color recognition tool for the blind. It can recognize plants, animals, and everything else. It can read the text in multiple languages.

Aids for color visually impaired people

• Microsoft Windows 10 colorblind mode. Microsoft Windows 10 offers a colorblind mode that allows a person with color blindness to adjust the colors shown on the screen for several types of color vision deficiencies such as Deuteranopia, Protanopia, and Tritanopia. This mode will change all the colors on your computer.

• Tactile Markers and Labels can help those with color vision deficiencies match clothing and identify color by texture and touch. 

Glasses and contacts.

The development of light filtering lenses have made it possible to provide a color-blind person with a better ability to distinguish between certain shades that otherwise look the same. Color-blind glasses and contacts are eyeglasses or lenses with specially tinted lenses that help a person with color vision deficiency see colors more accurately. Color-blind glasses and lenses allow color-blind individuals to see the world more accurately and experience a broader spectrum of colors while wearing glasses or contacts.

These glasses can help people pass the Ishihara Color Vision Test. They can also help reduce academic and work-related challenges associated with colorblindness and improve the enjoyment of everyday activities.

While there is currently no cure for color blindness, some forms of color blindness can be treated. Additionally, there are visual aid devices and technology applications that can make it easier for people with color vision deficiencies to interpret colors, better see contrasts, or hues to make their lives easier and navigate their surroundings.

Since 1975, Dr. Thomas Azman has treated 1000’s people who suffer from red- green color blindness, and since 1999 has utilized his proprietary ColorCorrection System™. The system can change the wavelength of each color going into one or both eyes using eyeglasses or soft contact lenses. With an astonishing 100 percent success rate, Dr. Azman has helped people with colorblindness all over the world to pass many types of pseudoisochromatic plate tests.

Aren’t you ready to see the world in color? Contact us for treatment by calling (443) 470-9844, or filling out our contact form.