Retinal implantation can restore the sight of patients, who lost their vision due to retinal diseases or retinal cell degeneration. WHO states that 1.3 billion individuals suffer from retinal impairment due to some reasons. Reinstating vision is one of the challenging tasks even in the 21st century. Researchers are not far from obtaining successful results on artificial vision restoration with the help of retinal implanting techniques.
The retinal implant works with the help of an external camera, microcomputer, and set of smart glasses, which stimulates the retinal cells with the use of electrodes and thus providing a vision to the blind. However the natural vision cannot be brought into the picture, but with the help of a retinal prosthetic, the patient can differentiate between different shapes, light and dark images as well.
How Retinal implantation is implemented?
The blind person wearing this device on one of his eyes has an embedded camera in the smart glass itself which captures the images in a vision of the person which is later sent to the microcomputer converting the light signals into respective information and obtaining output for the same. The person wearing this device can only see a monochrome image since the electrodes are changing the working of the retina. The person can only see the number of dots present, and with the connection of every visible dot, a person can determine the shape of the object.
Reports state that the device is complete however it is not yet tested on humans. The clinical trials can take some time, Ghezzi said, but with the retinal implantation technique, partial vision can be gained by blind patients without further complications. “Our Engineers wanted to confirm if two electrodes don’t overlap each other and by conducting various electrophysiological tests we determined the results which involved the recording of retinal ganglion cells”.
The demand for retinal implantation is growing at a substantial rate in the global market, providing a vision to blind people. However, with the help of retinal implantation, the person cannot completely adapt to independent natural life. The artificial retina manufacturers have set large investments in the Research and Development team in the global market to advance the growth of the vision restoration device. The users can change and set the field of vision as well as the resolution in order to enhance the quality of images and determine the best possible solution.
