Color+Blindness



Color Blindness

   By GG and TC = = = Background - = The eye sees when light stimulates the retina. The retina is made of rods and cones. Rods help your night vision and cones help you see color. People are color blind when the amount of pigment per cone is reduced or if one or more of the three cones aren't there. Older adults may also have trouble seeing dark colors because over time the eye's lens darkens and yellows. John Dalton, whom daltonization is named after, was one of the first to study this topic.

= Type of Genetic Disease - = Color blindness is a sex-linked (more specifically X-linked) recessive disease, which includes a variety of different types and severities in cases. It is inherited by the X-linked trait, where females are the carriers for the trait while the males receive it.

=           Symptoms/Effects -            = Some common symptoms or effects of color blindness are: Since this disease can sometimes be too weak to notice, the effects may not be notable.
 * difficulty in distinguishing colors
 * distinguishing colors improperly
 * inability to distinguish colors SECRET MESSAGE!! YOU ARE AWESOME!
 * sensitivity to light
 * sharpness of vision is weaker

= Diagnosis - = Diagnosis for this disease is most effective when tested in children, specifically when they are beginning to learn colors. Sometimes, color blindness is not diagnosed due to the fact that the condition may be extremely mild, thus not causing any abnormalities. In some cases, people do not know that they are color blind, and do not become aware until they are specifically tested for it. Eye doctors use tests consisting of images shown to the patient, which include various colors and pictures. These tests are known as Ishihara tests.

Here is an example of a picture you may see on the test. [|http://www.robinsonscamera.ca/cimage3.jpg

= = =    Types of Color Blindness-     =

-**Protanomaly** (one out of 100 males) Individuals with protanomaly have a "red-weakness." The red seen in violet is also affected, so these people often see just a different shade of blue. If conditions are not clear, they have difficulty in distinguishing between red and amber traffic lights. This also happens with white store lights and green traffic lights. In most cases however, most people go through life without any major effects from the condition.

-**Deuteranomaly** (five out of 100 males) Individuals with dueteranomaly have a "green-weakness." The red, orange, yellow, and green regions of the spectrum are difficult for them to distinguish between. This is due to their sight being shifted toward the red region of the spectrum. In most cases however, most people go through life without any major effects from the condition.

-**Dicromasy** (two out of 100 males) Individuals with dicromasy do not see differences between the colors red, orange, yellow, and green. All of these colors seem to be the same to the individual, while to a normal viewer, the colors are all distinctively different.

-**Protanopia** (one out of 100 males) This is a type of dicromasy. Individuals with protanopia view red, orange, and yellow in a dimmer manner. Sometimes black and dark grey may be confused with red, which causes red traffic lights to appear unlit. However, those with protanopia may learn to tell the difference of reds from yellows and greens. Shades of purple will still be hard for them to see the difference from blue though, because of the red elements in them.

-**Deuteranopia** (one out of 100 males) This is also a type of dicromasy. They also have trouble viewing the difference between red, orange, yellow, green, and violet, purple and blue. However, they do not see a difference in the brightness of the colors. All the colors just look the same.

=     Prognosis -      = While color blindness affects the vision of an individual, it does not lead to additional loss of vision or blindness. Some minor effects that can occur are: Eye doctors may suggest glasses or tinted sunglasses to help with these conditions. (if applicable) Since this is a life-long condition, doctors tell their patients to cope with their condition.
 * loss of sharpness in vision. (not drastic)
 * sensitivity to light.

 =       Treatment    -          = There is no medical treatment. However, some people learn to tell colors apart by their location or brightness. Others use specially tinted glasses to help them tell colors apart. As for why there is no cure, the reason is that, medically, the condition cannot be "fully cured." As stated above, specially tinted glasses are sometimes used to help compensate for the color blindness. While this may help, it does not guarantee a full compensation. Daltonization is used to help with certain deficiencies, however.

 =          Statistics -            = In males, 1 out of 8 are affected. In females, 1 out of 100 are affected.

 =    Daltonization -     = John Dalton, a British scientist delving into the mystery of color blindness, founded a process used to provide color blinded individuals with the ability to distinguish between the colors, therefore allowing them to use the color differences in their studies/activities. It is a combination of two processes:
 * increasing the red/green contrast
 * converting the red/green into blue/yellow (for dichromats)

(all four images are from [|http://www.vischeck.com/daltonize/>

=   Other Awesome Stuff -    =

Ironically, the inventor of Crayola crayons, Emerson Moser, was colorblind. Coincidence? I think not! What else is the white crayon used for? =    ¿Los Comentarios? =    Wow. 1 out of 8 males are colorblind. Thats a very high percent!! Hopefully there will treatment for it someday. -Cretinism

Wow! Awesome page! That's cool that if you highlight your page, you get a secret message. I learned so much from your page on color blindness. Good facts! And I am awesome!!! Thanks!! CV-2-CB

We think your page is kickin. It is nice that you included all of the different types of color blindness. And the cell pictures are cool too. The only thing is that they are not cited. DK and EE

We like your page a lot. It's interesting and neat. We could read the 29. It's weird that 1 in 8 males have it. We didn't know it was so common. HK & JM

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif">The pictures showing the differences in vision are really cool. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif"> We didn't know it could weaken your vision sharpness and cause sensitivity to light too. L  ooks good. PB and CB Wow, great job! I like the organization. Why didn't you guys carry the color through out the page? I didn't know there are so many different types of colorblindness, that's really neat. I didn't know that they guy that started Crayola was color blind! That's pretty strange.~Turner's Syndrome(SL&KT)

It's intresting that there are so many types of Color Blindness. Good job on the page! CL&JH

We definitely see the 29, so obviously neither of us are color blind. It was really interesting how there are many types of this disease, and your pictures are also very interesting. - Cri-du-Chat (RS and UP)

I like the cell depictions and the 29 test to see if you're colorblind. I was surprised to hear that women are much less affected by colorblindedness than men! Very interesting! Great page! -KF&LF

Great Page! but i was just wondering whats the secret message? - Hemophilia

<span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">**Bibliography** <span class="wiki_link_ext">Waggoner, Terrance L. "Colors for the Color Blind." __Toledo Bend__. Apr. 2004. 31 Mar. 2008 <span style="COLOR: rgb(253,252,252)"><span class="wiki_link_ext">indent? [|<.http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/aboutCB.html>.] <span class="wiki_link_ext">

Juaca, Stefan. "Color Blindness" May 2005. 6 Apr. 2008 [|<http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2005/jauc5s0/public_html/facts.htm>.]

<span class="wiki_link_ext"> <span class="wiki_link_ext"> "Color Blindness" __Medicinenet__. 20 June 2005. 1 Apr. 2008 [|<http://www.medicinenet.com/color_blindness/article.htm>.]

"Color Blindness"        __Prevent Blindness America__. 2005. 31 Mar. 2008 [|<http://www.preventblindness.org/eye_problems/colorvision.html>.]

<span class="wiki_link_ext"> "Color Blind Image Correction." __Vischeck__. 3 Mar. 2005. 2 Apr. 2008 [|<http://www.vischeck.com/daltonize/>.]

"Definition of Color Blindness"        __Medicinenet__. June 18, 2002. 1 April 2008 [|<http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20728>.] <span class="wiki_link_ext">