Category: Health and Wellness
hope for those with RP you can find more at;
http://secondsight.com/
I'm going to have a look, but I havve a nagging feeling this does not work for people with retinopathy of prematurity? Wondering if anyone has done any exporation into regenerating the optic nerve in folks with ROP.
Yeah, for less than a second, I thought this might apply to those of us with RLF/ROP. RP gets all the attention!
I'd wait until they completely figure it out. At the moment you have to carry a
receiver n your hip, have a chip in your eye and then wear special smart
sunglasses. No thank you.
Dr. Robert Greenberg, Chairman of the Board of Second Sight, said, "It is rare that technological development offers such stirring possibilities. This first human test confirms that we are on the right track with our Orion I program to treat blind patients who cannot benefit from the Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis (Argus II). This initial success in a patient is an exciting and important milestone even though it does not yet include a camera. By bypassing the optic nerve and directly stimulating the visual cortex, the Orion I has the potential to restore useful vision to patients completely blinded due to virtually any reason, including glaucoma, cancer, diabetic retinopathy, or trauma.
Needing to ware special glasses and have a receiver on your hip is a feature not a bug to those of us born blind. While I don't think I will ever have an operation to restore my vision if available I'd consider it a lot more if I could just leave my vision off most of the time.
Bypassing the optic nerve. THat's interesting. My eyes are just fine, byt my nerves are highly under-developed. I wonder if this would apply to me. Depending on side effects and likelihood of success I'd probably do that.
Hm, not helpful for those with prosthetic eyes.
I don't think y'all appreciate just how bad the so-called vision is that devices like the Argus provide. Especially for those of us born blind, it offers us so little functionality that the risks of surgery aren't justified. Do y'all really want all the risks associated with placing a chip in your brain just so you can perceive a few points of light?
I have RP and have been aware of the special surgery for people with this eye disorder for a number of years now. I get their newsletters on a regular basis. After talking to someone on staff at the Second Sight California clinic site, I decided that the procedure was not for me. I asked three pertinent questions to help me decide. The answer to each question was a definite no. First question was "Will I be able to see well enough after the surgery to read print"? The second question was"Will I be able after the procedure to walk around without using my cane"? The third question was Will I be able after the procedure to see clearly even close up the faces of my adult children that I have never seen"? A definite no to each question brought a fourth question from me, which was, "Then what's the point of having the surgery? The answer was that just having a vague outline of an object or maybe having more light perception might give some blind people some happiness. When I asked about the price, I was told that it was quite expensive and that I might check with my church, friends and family members for support in raising the money if I were interested in having the procedure done. Payment by insurance companies was not available as of yet. Also, I was informed that the surgery would be done in only one eye in hopes that a better procedure might be available in the future. Sharing this information is not to discourage others from making their own inquiries. Maybe things have changed significantly since I talked to Second Sight two years ago. But if so, they have not posted it in the newsletters I have been receiving.
I do not wish to be discouraging, but I've been seeing this kind of research and technology, and its failure, for nearly 40 years now. It is based on the misguided belief that any vision is better than no vision which is how sighted people tend to view blindness. The technology does not now work, and the amount of press given with the false promise is almost criminal. The technology will happen eventually that helps at least some people, but that is still really far away.
There is another issue. This sort of thing will only work for someone who used to be able to see. People blind from birth, or blinded very early, do not know how to see. The brain is unable to understand the visual signals sent and cannot interpret the images. This is well established fact. So, the issues are far more complex than just technology. I'd never recommend this kind of horribly expensive surgery to anyone while it is so very primitive.
I agree with you wholeheartedly Pasco. Such claims for restoring "light perception" have been around for years.
On the other hand, while technology like this is still barely past the fetus stage, and while I wouldn't recommend it for people for all the reasons stated, I think it's very important for research like this to be conducted. It allows researchers to better understand the way the body and brain interact, and can hopefully lead to technology that really will help us see in the future, whether it be those of us who can see just a little and would benefit from enhanced vision, to those of us who have never learned and may wish to attempt it. Sight is not the be all and end all as much of the sighted feel it is, but nor is having sight a bad thing. Honestly, if I could gain greater use of my vision for real, I'd do it depending on the risks and cost involved.
Yes, research is important, but they should tell us the truth - that it's only research and we won't gain useful vision from it. Their current behavior is unethical.
Yes I agree. Being transparent and realistic is very important.
Must confess, I misheard that as "rectal prosthesis."
Hahaha! Doesn't surprise me at all.
hehe.
actually, I learned something interesting. If you've been blind your whole life, then you have a procedure to help you see, your eyes and your brain will never adjust to interpreting images. You can touch an apple and know it's an apple in front of you, but the cells in the retina that are responsible for sending the picture of the object to your brain won't work the way they're supposed to because they've never been developed properly. Given that information, I don't see the point in having such a procedure done as a person who is completely blind now and has been so since birth.
honestly if I could get my site back I wouldn't. I don't miss it. Saying that, as someone who has been blind from birth, and as someone who can no longer see light, (that went in 2016.) This would never work for me, sadly.
I'm also totally blind from birth. I would take real vision if it were available. No, it's false that your retina would never be able to properly send images. Your brain is much less able to learn to see after a lifetime of blindness, but you could still gain something useful from the experience if you wanted to.
Voyager, the first quote after this paragraph says you would very, very likely not have a clue either way if your brain could learn to cope after surgery until you actually go through it. there may have been studies done, but this does not mean all blind people who choose to have this procedure are going to be able to learn to interpret what is around them with their eyes.
"I'm also totally blind from birth. ..."
And yes, I do agree with,
"Your brain is much less able to learn to see after a lifetime of blindness,"
But I disagree with the following assertion at the end of the sentence:
"... you could still gain something useful from the experience if you wanted to."
Can you? Like what? If you've never seen a damn thing before and have absolutely no prior memory of focusing on something with your eyes, even light, how the heck could the brain learn, for example, that the fruit someone placed in front of you is an apple? You would know it by touch of course, but how is it the eyes would be able to give you that same piece of information in addition to the color and size of the apple? It takes time to learn how to see; even a TVI or an ophthalmologist could tell you that. Something is not making sense to me.
You'd have to learn, if you chose to do so, how to do everything with sight: reading, writing, understanding colors, etc. IF one makes a decision like this, obviously they want and hope to gain something from this kind of surgery. It's not a matter of "choosing" to adjust after surgery, assuming the operation even yields positive results; you just either adapt to or get frustrated with or tired of the situation: newly-acquired sight. And, if you become frustrated with seeing, either wear shades or just have the operation reversed.
For me personally, it would just be far too overwhelming, just as it can be for someone who has had vision all their life to learn how to do things without sight.
If it works, then great, but if, after they remove the bandages and so many months of adjusting to eyesight thereafter, you're finding, "Oh my Gosh, what is all this," then at least you would know it would be too much.
In short, don't assume it's going to be a quick fix or an easy road learning how to see.
Not attacking, just pointing out some bits that didn't really add up in your post.
I already know all this. I've read just about every case study in existence of anyone who was either born blind or went blind early in life and gained sight later. I know, for example, that people tend to learn colors very quickly but really struggle to understand distance. I also know that I may be able to learn what a real apple looks like but I may never be able to see an apple or anything meaningful in a flat painting. So what I said was accurate: Those of us who are open to the experience can learn useful things from it even though we will never have normal vision and our brains will never be optimized for seeing.