Actually, colorbook, lots and lots of technology to allow the blind to use the computer. I know lots of blind people who are totally addicted to their computers.
I know lots of seeing people who are totally addicted to their computers...
Actually, I am not very hobbled by my visual idiosyncracies.
While I wanted to explain it, and must admit I probably have a few rough months ahead re the cataracts being fixed, generally my eyes are holding tough. Not to get cocky about it.
Hi sozobe. I am aware of that, my son-in-law is blind. There is new technology for both hearing loss and blindness. Thankfully I don't have to make that real decision at the moment.
You know, something I've noticed about being online is that I can converse more easily. There are fewer "what?"s. When I go to gatherings they are invariably in loud scenes and I get seperated from the conversations.
You just don't hear them here. Every time I see your signature line, I say "What?"
Now we are all thinking about what fate may befall us. Maybe I'd rather loose my sense of smell instead. At times that could be benificial.
Uh, I don't have a sense of smell either. Mostly. (hereditary anosmia or something like that.)
Ok, what's left... touch..
Oops, excuse me!
Pardon me!
Sorry.
Beg your pardon.
Flip.
Eyesight is much more important for human functioning in the modern world. To supplement hearing functions involving language, you could learn sign language. There would be no supplement for lost vision, except braile reading material.
Of course, if I were a musician, I would choose hearing.
Ah...but if you were a painter and a musician...then what?
Actually, I don't know how any of us can say what is much more important as a generalization. It seems to me to be an individual consideration.
After having lunch with osso and a friend in that noisy restaurant, each of us understanding that we weren't hearing much of what the others were saying, I realized that social settings from now on have to be in a quiet place or I might as well stay at home.
OK, everybody, my place at 12:00 P.M. for lunch and conversation. I won't even have the CD player going. Oh, and if your eyesight is poor, you won't notice the dust. Sounds like a party to me.
I would never feel safe without sight.
Sozobe nailed it
Sozobe nailed it with her quote from Ray Charles: "Being blind cuts you off from things, being deaf cuts you off from people."
Osso, did you read my post about the latest operation for cataracts? If not, I will try to find it and repost it here.
BumbleBeeBoogie
Osso, I found and reposted the article
Osso, I found the article - BBB
Sep 17, 1:24 PM EDT
Lens Implant May Help Correct Cataracts
By BRUCE SMITH
Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- Ophthalmologists have revolutionized cataract surgery by implementing a new, cutting-edge multifocal lens implant.
A patient who underwent the procedure reported that she's seeing better for both distance and reading. She also has no more use for glasses, something usually required by replacing the cataract with single focal-length lens.
Cataracts are the clouding of the clear lenses in the eyes. The lens becomes brittle, and yellowish. Although some cataracts are congenital and occur in young children, most of us will get them with age.
"If we live long enough, everyone will get a cataract," said Dr. M. Edward Wilson Jr., chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Medical University of South Carolina's Storm Eye Institute.
Kate Reiss, 55, a Charleston resident who teaches school in nearby Summerville, recently underwent cataract surgery in which she received the new implant.
"It's phenomenal. It's just unbelievable," said Reiss, who had a lens implanted in her second eye a few weeks after the first.
"For the first couple of days, when I would read the newspaper in the morning, I had my glasses right there," she said. But she never uses them. "I haven't had the nerve to throw them away yet. But I don't use them for anything."
"This is the first implant I have come across where we have a real wow effect," said Dr. Kerry Solomon, the director of the Magill Laser Center at the institute.
"They are reading labels on medicine bottle. They are reading phone books. They are reading stock tables without glasses as well as driving their cars and watching TV," he said.
The Storm Eye Institute is one of a handful of centers across the nation conducting clinical tests on the new generation lenses, which could be approved for general use by late next year, Solomon said.
"We have put in 60 to 70 of these implants now and no one uses glasses for anything," Solomon said.
"The technology for these devices has advanced so much," said Dr. Janine Smith, the deputy clinical director at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Md. "In 25 years from now, when there are roughly twice as many people over 65, there will be many more new options than in the past."
Surgical techniques have improved so much that, in many cases, the procedure is done as outpatient surgery.
"It's not like it's a trip to the mall, but it is outpatient," Smith added. With increasing frequency, some middle-aged patients are opting for a procedure called clear lens extraction. "It's the same thing as cataract surgery except the lens is not cloudy and insurance does not pay for it," Solomon said.
A multifocal lens would mean the patient would no longer have to use glasses and could avoid the need for cataract surgery when cataracts eventually do develop.
But for younger patients, those in their 20s and 30s, such a procedure doesn't really make sense, even if one day they develop cataracts.
"There is some risk associated with surgery," said Smith, who adds you wouldn't want to do such surgery unless it was necessary. And, she said, while the technology is good and getting better, the body's natural lens is still better at focusing on its own.
Aging also can bring problems with the eye's cornea, the transparent tissue on the front of the eye. It's a different problem but one also being addressed at the Storm Eye Institute.
"The cornea is hazing so you can't see through it - light scatters and you can't see images well," said Dr. David Vroman, a faculty member in MUSC's Department of Ophthalmology. "The patient won't know if it's a cataract or a cornea. They'll just know that they have blurry vision."
Doctors know how to replace the cornea by transplanting a donor cornea.
"What we're working on is just replacing the portions that are abnormal," Vroman says. "If you have a problem with the back portion of the cornea, we're working on removing just that back portion like a layer, like a sheet."
"The idea is to keep the eye as stable as possible. You can imagine if we made a big cut through the cornea, the whole eye is weakened," Vroman adds.
"Technically, it's much more difficult," Wilson says. "But if you can think of taking a layer of the eye out and replacing a layer, the rejection rate goes down. One of the layers that leads the pack in rejection is not a layer that needs to be replaced much of the time."
Vroman said some scientists are working to develop artificial corneas.
"But the long-term survivability of an artificial cornea is not great," he adds. "The eye just doesn't like that kind of foreign material. We can't integrate that kind of foreign material on the surface of the eye very well."
Thanks, BB, I'll ask about it. I am in something of a backwater here (though not entirely) and have a time constraint (driver's license renewal) plus a money constraint.
But, I'll ask about this, appreciate the link.
Osso
Osso, Guatam posted this link in another site.
BBB
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3149454.stm
The idea of losing music with hearing is devestating... but I think I'd definitely rather lose hearing than sight. There's always music running through my mind anyway... but nothing can replace the grin on a child's face, or the blueness of the sky... or being able to cross the street by yourself.
