Color blindness – causes and symptoms. What is the treatment for color blindness?

Color blindness is a visual impairment that makes the eye unable to recognize the color green and distinguish between red, yellow and orange. Due to this ailment, color-blind people have problems with finding a job and they face obstacles in everyday life at every step. Color blindness is hereditary, it occurs almost exclusively in men.

What is color blindness?

Color blindness is a congenital defect that makes the eye unable to recognize green and has difficulty distinguishing between red, orange and yellow. In short, color blindness is a disturbed color perception. In color blindness, we deal with partial color blindness. The name of the disease comes from the English physicist and chemist John Dalton, who first noticed that he saw individual colors quite differently than other people (green is red for him). Although he described his visual impairment, none of the doctors was able to explain to him where these disorders come from. In 1994, at the Institute of Ophthalmology in London, tests were carried out which proved that incorrect color vision is caused by a poor structure of the retina (one of the photoreceptors responsible for seeing red color is missing).

Partial color blindness is a type of color blindness that is particularly troublesome in childhood, when children compete with each other and may have problems with grades at school and with self-esteem – preschoolers and first graders, for example, paint red grass on their drawings.

The ailment mainly occurs in men, color-blindness is less common in women. Color blinders are disadvantaged in their daily lives and cannot do many jobs.

The causes of color blindness

Inheritance

Color blindness is a genetically determined eye defect. It is inherited recessively in conjunction with the X chromosome (therefore the gene responsible for color blindness is located on the X chromosome). Since men have only one X chromosome in the genetic code (XY), and women have two X chromosomes (XX), men are at greater risk of developing this condition.

The human eye has three types of suppository. They are sensitive to blue, green and red. The human eye sees a given color when the eye’s cones register different amounts of these three main colors. Most of the suppositories are located in the macula, which in turn is located in the central part of the retina.

Other causes of color blindness

1. Color blindness may be a consequence of diseases of the visual tract and retina.

2. In most cases, color blindness occurs from birth (it is a hereditary defect). It occurs when suppositories are missing in the eye or when their function is abnormal.

3. Color blindness can also be an acquired ailment related to:

1. eye diseases, e.g., cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration;
2. eye trauma, damage to the visual tract, e.g., the retina of the eye;
3. aging;
4. taking certain medications (complication), e.g. psychoactive substances.

Types of color blindness

Monochronatism – it is a complete lack of the ability to distinguish colors. This ailment is very rare and is also the most serious variety. People suffering from monochromatism see everything around as in black and white film. The disease is caused by a complete underdevelopment of the retinal cones and is associated with problems with adapting to light and a very low visual acuity.

Dichromatism – occurs due to the missing photoreceptor, the patient is completely indistinguishable from green or red.

Trichromatism – it is characterized by a difference in the sensitivity of the suppositories in the retina, which consequently lowers the saturation of one of the colors.

Symptoms of color blindness

The accompanying symptoms vary depending on the form of the disease. A color blind person may recognize a lot of applause and not be aware that he sees it completely differently than other people. Some people with color blindness see only a few colors, while healthy people see thousands of colors. There are (rarely) cases when a color blind person distinguishes only three colors: black, white and gray.

Color blindness and everyday life

In traffic, color-blinders are extremely dangerous both for themselves and for others. People who can see color well from a distance notice the light of signal and brake lamps. There are frequent cases when someone, due to color blindness, drives over the railroad tracks despite the red light of the semaphore. People often get confused by the concepts of color blindness (trichromatism, also called partial color blindness) and color blindness (dichromatism, also called color blindness). The main difference is that in a color-blind person (partial-color blindness) all the cones of the eye work, while in a color-blind person (color-blind), green or red cones are not functional at all.

Color blindness – diagnostics

Color blindness is diagnosed on the basis of specialized eye examinations, which use pseudo-isochromatic color tables. Another ophthalmological examination, much more detailed, is the examination for which the anomaloscope is used. During the examination, the patient must compare two colors.

There are also various types of tests:

1. with the use of cards with pictures composed of colored dots arranged in a shape – the subject is to read these pictures. Thanks to this method, a specialist can easily assess which colors the patient is having trouble with,
2. with the use of colored tokens – the patient’s task is to organize them according to the principle of color similarity. If the examined person has disorders, he / she will not be able to properly perform this task.

Color blindness – treatment

Congenital color blindness cannot be cured, only some disorders can be corrected. Treatment also depends on the cause of color blindness, if the disease was caused by, for example, cataracts – surgery will help to regain the appropriate color perception.

Color blindness can be corrected by appropriate lenses, designed to elicit stimuli in the eye to which the person who can see and can distinguish all colors responds. By wearing corrective lenses, the color blind person will see shades that he has not noticed before. In patients with partial color blindness, even complete color vision correction is possible.

How to get glasses that correct color vision deficiency (partial color blindness):

Amblyopia can be measured at the ophthalmologist or optician’s shop.

1. Set aside about half an hour for the measurement. It is made using the appropriate atlas with colorful pictures.
2. Appropriate corrective lenses will be selected based on the test result. Due to the need to individually adjust the lenses to the defect, it may be necessary to wait several days or weeks for the appropriate corrective lenses to be made.