A ray of hope for anyone facing a lifetime without sight

Following a successful Bionic Eye trial at Manchester Royal Eye hospital a 50 year old man offers a glimmer of hope as he recovers some of his sight over twenty years after he lost it. He lost his eyesight due to a degenerative disease (retinitis pigmentosa) that affects many people each year, but with his new bionic eye he is now able to see dots of lights that form the outline of various different objects. He has even been able to progress to reading short words such as, “cat”. Whilst the images will take some getting used to and aren’t precise (he describes cars as looking like cotton wool) this is a miraculous step in the right direction.

The bionic eye works by a camera being fitted to a pair of glasses which then processes the image that the eyes would normally see and transmits the information to a processor. This then converts the image into an electrical signal which can be passed back to the glasses to a transmitter which then sends it to a receptor within the eye. The data produced by the camera is then sent to the retina’s remaining nerves which in turn sends the data down the optic nerve and to the brain where the image is processed.

However, this procedure didn’t just happen overnight; Peter had to have a four hour operation in order for the transmitter to be fitted within his eye and had to wait a further two months for his eye to heal properly before the device could be tried out. Thankfully, for Peter the wait has proved worth it and he hopes to have a special screen installed at home that will enlarge letters for him so he can continue to read at home.

Whilst there is obviously still a lot of work to do in this area, scientists have said the progressions have been much faster than they first thought. Equally, if you had told Peter he may see again ten years ago, he probably wouldn’t have believed you. And with 25,000 people in the UK affected by the same disease as Peter, this news is just what they’ve been waiting for.

2nd December 2009

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