Are There Color Blindness Cures?

Color blindness is characterized as the inability of the eyes to distinguish between two or more colors. Though there are no color blindness cures, there are many ways of dealing with color blindness so that it has only a minimal or negligible impact on daily life. The reason there are no color blindness cures has much to do with the nature of the condition and the way the eye normally works to interpret colors.

The name color blindness is somewhat of a misnomer because complete absence of color vision in humans is extremely rare. Traditional color blindness, which is far more common and affects upwards of 10% of the male population and roughly 0.05% of all females, is the impaired recognition of green, red, or blue shades. It is often a genetic disorder but can also result from brain or eye trauma.

Human vision works mainly due to two sets of cells housed in the retina of the eye. These cells, known as rods and cones due to their shapes, process light, which the brain then interprets. Rods handle grayscale, and cones interpret colors. Color blindness occurs when color-sensing tissue in the cones, known as pigments, are missing or become damaged. The kind of pigments that are missing or damaged dictate which colors become indistinguishable.

Theoretical color blindness cures would likely involve gene therapy. Somehow inserting or growing functioning pigment into target cones could yield color vision. Aside from the inherent mechanical and biological difficulties in such an operation, the relative mildness of the condition means it can generally be managed to the point where surgical correction, let alone the research to develop it, is not worth the risk or the cost.

The effects of color blindness are so mild that it is not uncommon to hear of individuals who make it to their teens or twenties before realizing something is not right with their vision. Sufferers of color blindness can manage their condition and live perfectly normal lives. Many of the tools and therapies available in the 21st century have rendered the search for color blindness cures largely superfluous.

A common treatment for color blindness involves wearing tinted contact lenses or glasses that are specifically designed to help the wearer distinguish problem colors. It is also possible for an individual with color blindness to use a special camera that can identify certain colors and emit a particular audio cue. Computer software also exists that helps filter colors on a desktop environment to a spectrum recognizable by a user. In most developed countries, potential problem areas, like stop lights, which historically were solely color-coded have been revised using different shapes and other kinds of indicators.