Health & Medicine
New Telescopic Contact Lens May Lead to Better, Stronger Vision
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Feb 14, 2015 08:20 AM EST
A total of 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. Age-related macular degeneration alone is the leading cause of blindness among older adults in the Western world. Now, though, researchers have created a new prototype of a telescopic contact lens that may lead to better, stronger vision.
"We think these lenses hold a lot of promise for low vision and age-related macular degeneration," said Eric Tremblay, one of the researchers, in a news release. "It's very important and hard to strike a balance between function and the social costs of wearing any kind of bulky visual device. There is a strong need for something more integrated, and a contact lens is an attractive direction. At this point this is still research, but we are hopeful it will eventually become a real option for people with AMD."
The first iteration of the contact lens, which magnified 2.8 times, was announced in 2013. Since then, the scientists have been fine tuning the lens membranes and creating accessories to make the eyewear smarter and more comfortable for longer periods.
So how do they work? The lenses incorporate a very thin reflective telescope inside a 1.55 mm-thick lens. Small mirrors within bounce light around, expanding the perceived size of objects and magnifying the view, so it's like looking through low magnification binoculars.
Currently, the lenses are made using a rigid lens known as a scleral lens, which is larger in diameter than the typical soft contacts you might use. However, these lenses are safe and comfortable for special applications and may be an attractive option for technologies such as optics, sensors and electronics.
That's not all, either. The researchers developed a new method to electronically switch the wearer's view between normal and telescopic. The system, which was debuted as glasses, uses a small light source to recognize winks and ignore blinks. The wearer needs to wink their right eye for magnification and left eye for normal vision.
The new technology could help those suffering from AMD. That said, the researchers are still testing the tech and it will be some time before it's available.
For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
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First Posted: Feb 14, 2015 08:20 AM EST
A total of 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. Age-related macular degeneration alone is the leading cause of blindness among older adults in the Western world. Now, though, researchers have created a new prototype of a telescopic contact lens that may lead to better, stronger vision.
"We think these lenses hold a lot of promise for low vision and age-related macular degeneration," said Eric Tremblay, one of the researchers, in a news release. "It's very important and hard to strike a balance between function and the social costs of wearing any kind of bulky visual device. There is a strong need for something more integrated, and a contact lens is an attractive direction. At this point this is still research, but we are hopeful it will eventually become a real option for people with AMD."
The first iteration of the contact lens, which magnified 2.8 times, was announced in 2013. Since then, the scientists have been fine tuning the lens membranes and creating accessories to make the eyewear smarter and more comfortable for longer periods.
So how do they work? The lenses incorporate a very thin reflective telescope inside a 1.55 mm-thick lens. Small mirrors within bounce light around, expanding the perceived size of objects and magnifying the view, so it's like looking through low magnification binoculars.
Currently, the lenses are made using a rigid lens known as a scleral lens, which is larger in diameter than the typical soft contacts you might use. However, these lenses are safe and comfortable for special applications and may be an attractive option for technologies such as optics, sensors and electronics.
That's not all, either. The researchers developed a new method to electronically switch the wearer's view between normal and telescopic. The system, which was debuted as glasses, uses a small light source to recognize winks and ignore blinks. The wearer needs to wink their right eye for magnification and left eye for normal vision.
The new technology could help those suffering from AMD. That said, the researchers are still testing the tech and it will be some time before it's available.
For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone