BlindOnlineSuccessSystem.com

WASHINGTON – U.S. health officials have approved a first-of-its-kind technology to counter a leading cause of blindness in older adults — a tiny telescope
implanted inside the eye.

The
Implantable Miniature Telescope
 aims to help in the end stages of incurable age-related macular degeneration, a creeping loss of central vision that blocks reading, watching TV, eventually
even recognizing faces.

The idea: Surgically insert the Implantable Miniature Telescope into one eye for better central vision, while leaving the other eye alone to provide
peripheral vision
. The brain must fuse two views into a single image, and the Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday that patients need post-surgery rehabilitation
to make it work.

There’s little to help such advanced patients today aside from difficult-to-use handheld or glasses-mounted telescopes, while the new implanted telescope
— smaller than a pea — can improve quality of life for the right candidate, said Dr. Malvina Eydelman, FDA’s ophthalmic devices chief.

But it’s only for a subset of the nearly 2 million Americans with advanced macular degeneration, Eydelman warned: Those 75 and older, with a certain degree
of
vision loss
, who also need a cataract removed. In fact, the FDA took the highly unusual step of requiring that patients and their surgeons sign a detailed “acceptance
of risk agreement” before surgery, acknowledging
potential side effects
 — including corneal damage and worsened vision — and the need for lots of testing to determine who’s a candidate.

“We’re not giving people back 20-year-old eyes,” cautioned ophthalmic surgeon Dr. Kathryn Colby of Harvard and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in
Boston. She helped lead manufacturer
VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies
‘ study of the implant.

But by magnifying images onto more of the retina than its diseased center, someone who before couldn’t see an entire face might now miss only the nose,
Colby said.

In a 219-patient study, the FDA said 90 percent of telescope recipients had their vision improve by at least two lines on an eye chart, and three-quarters
went from severe to moderate vision impairment.

Concern about damage to the inside lining of the cornea, the eye’s clear front covering that helps focus light, held up FDA approval for several years.
In that study, 10 eyes had serious corneal swelling, five that required corneal transplants. FDA’s Eydelman said the company proposed candidate restrictions
to minimize that risk, and will study how an additional 770 recipients fare after sales begin.

VisionCare, of Saratoga, Calif., is seeking
Medicare coverage
 for the surgery and rehab costs, a package that it calls CentraSight. The company wouldn’t estimate total costs but said the device itself costs $15,000.
==========================
As technology greatly improves, we will see more and more devices, and surgeries that will greatly enhance the vision of the visually impaired, plus give new site to the totally blind.  We ahve already made great strides, and we ahve some so far, but we still have a very long way to go before blindness becomes a thing of the past, or at least recognized as a very minor inconvenience.

We here at BOSS fully understand the blind and visually impaired, and our aim is to see these people succeed not only in life, but with their own businesses as well.

We provide these articles to show you that there are many new advancements made in technology that aid the blind and visually impaired to live better, more independent lives.

We urge you to continue to read these articles, and please tell anybody else that you may think would be interested to come and have a great read.  We aim to inform, educate and help in any way possible.

If you want to know more about us, you may contact the following here below.

Donald Brown
Founder
Phone: 409-225-5239
Email: donald@blindonlinesuccesssystem.com

Lori Steffen and Jeff Wark
Founders
email: support@netcontentsolutions.com

2 Responses to “Telescopic Implants Helps Older Patients To See”