For those that can see all the colours of the rainbow, you are blessed. There are millions of people worldwide (8% of men and 0.5% of women) that are affected by CVD (Colour vision deficiency).
The causes can be passed biologically down from their mother, and in some cases it can also be caused by diabetes, multiple sclerosis or over time by different medications and aging.
This is not the ability to see any colours, but rather the ability to see certain colours in the colour spectrum. Those colours ore the RED, GREEN or BLUE colours.
The sufferers of colourblindness have as clear vision as we do, so it is just the colour perception that is different to what healthy eyes see.
So to break it down we have 3 different types of sufferers and these vary in severity, where about 40% of colourblind people barely notice the difference, and 60% of them deal with it daily (think traffic lights).
Four Types of colour viewing:
- Trichromacy - healthy eyes. Ability to see all 3 light cones correctly. Healthy eyes
- Anomalous Trichromacy - can see all 3 colour cones, but one of them is slightly out of 'alignment', making them perceive anythign with that faulty colour receptor seem off, or different to how we would see it
- Dichromacy - the inability to see a certain colour cone at all. "People suffering from protanopia are unable to perceive any ‘red’ light
!
those with deuteranopia are unable to perceive ‘green’ light
and those with tritanopia are unable to perceive ‘blue’ light.
"
- Monochromacy (achromatopsia) - total colour blindness. Seeing the world as different shades of grey, between white and black.
Check out a great video going through each of these CVD positions
How does the eye perceive colour?
In the above picture, you will see there are photo-receptor cells specifically registering certain waves of light. This is where the colour registration or separation happens for the brain. Light is reflected off objects into the eye, and according to which colour wavelength is reflected into the eye, those receptors then send the details to the brain to perceive those colours.
However, sometimes the receptors in those that suffer with CVD are overlapping, and the colours come through as very similar...thus stopping the brain from receiving separate information for each colour spectrum.
Technology that helps people see colour again
Again there are wonderful people that have looked into these issues and come up with solutions for these sufferers of CVD. They have done so by developing glasses that are setup to remove the overlapping colour spectrums that are taking place in CVD, and only let through those that the eyes can already decipher correctly...leaving them with a clearer and more accurate depiction of the colours around them.
This is done with glasses created by a company called ENCHROMA (www.enchroma.com).
Removing the overlapping area of colour spectrum from their eyes
These are designed to help (for now) about 4 out of 5 sufferers of CVD, those with partial blindness issues (anomalous trichromacy) and as you can tell by the below video, what it means to these people.
A touching video of people seeing colour properly for the first time. Don't feel bad if you tear up...it happens
I LOVED THIS
I am one of the many fortunate people that have never had to experience the lack of colour in my world. How grateful I am that those that do have to go through it can have something as simple as a pair of glasses help them experience the richness of this beautiful world again.
Well done Enchroma!
Images and information credit are http://www.colourblindawareness.org, YouTube, enchroma.com]