source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2481138.ece
NEW DELHI, September 24, 2011 A ray of hope for the blind Vijetha S. N A new technology that might partially cure blindness caused by damage or any other problem of the retina is being explored by a group of Indian doctors. Dr. Rajat N. Agrawal, who co-invented the “bionic eye”, will be heading a team that will carry out research and experiments over five years to make this technology amenable to Indian conditions. The “bionic eye”, already a success in Europe, is a surgical implant that has the ability to restore partial vision to blind people but the feasibility of this technology in Indian conditions is yet to be tested. “There are a host of problems with introducing this technology to Indian conditions and we are trying to develop the bionic eye with Indian specialists and technology,” said Dr. Agrawal at a press conference here earlier this week. Nascent stage “The technology is still in its initial phases, but people who were blind for the past 20 years were able to read newspaper headlines,” he added. Dr. Agrawal is also the founder of Retina India, an organisation dedicated to people whose visual impairments are retina-related. “The retina is 0.2mm in size but handles 70 per cent of the vision. There is no cure for blindness caused from damage to the retina and there are 130 known mutations of retina-related disease,” said Dr. Agrawal, adding that treatment is possible only if retinal disorders are detected at an early stage. “Spots of blood in the retina, swelling in the macula (main part of the retina) and yellowish spots in the retina, caused by increased fat accumulated in the body, are the early signs of retina disorder. Treatment includes laser therapy and injection of drugs into the eye with surgery as the last option,” he said. Comments to : web.thehi...@thehindu.co.in Copyright © 2011, The Hindu Register for AccessIndia convention 2011(November 12-13) at: http://www.accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
