An old woman from Honolulu, Japan has been suffering from blindness over the past two years. A new bionic eye invention helps her see again.
The 72-year old Japanese woman had to undergo four hours of surgical procedure at the Eye Surgery Center of Hawaii last March 24. She is the first person to receive the robotic implant in the region of Asia Pacific.
The bionic eye was only to be given to people who have hereditary disease that causes vision impairment such as retinitis pigmentosa, which is the case for the old woman.
It was Dr, Gregg Kokame who performed the surgery on the old lady. The doctor said that the bionic eye will only allow her to see motion and outlines in varying shades of grey. He added, “She’ll actually strat to see motion, actually start to see somebody walk into the room and be able to see different shades of grey.” Before her surgery, she was only able to detect bright lights but nothing else than that.
The cost for the device, as approved by the FDA, is $144,000. But the old woman’s bill was covered by Medicare.
In the procedure, they implanted a microelectrode array in the surface of the retina that directly sends signal to the brain, which is wirelessly connected to a camera built on a pair of glasses.
The bionic eye is not yet too advanced to clearly picture every detail, or all shades of color, but it might progress some time when technology advances.
The woman would be allowed to use her glasses after two weeks of full recovery from the operation. Kokame said that the patient is very enthusiastic and excited to see again.
Dr. Mark Humayan, the inventor of the bionic eye implant, hopes that the device will given to other patients with different conditions. He said, “’We have hundreds of millions of photo receptors in our eye, hundreds of millions, and with only 60 pixels patients who were completely blind can see large objects, can tell a table from a chair or a knife from a fork or a plate so it’s very exciting to see what the brain is able to fill in.”
After the invention of the bionic eye, it took them 25 years to develop the procedure that will allow it to be attached to an actual human being.
The 72-year old Japanese woman had to undergo four hours of surgical procedure at the Eye Surgery Center of Hawaii last March 24. She is the first person to receive the robotic implant in the region of Asia Pacific.
The bionic eye was only to be given to people who have hereditary disease that causes vision impairment such as retinitis pigmentosa, which is the case for the old woman.
It was Dr, Gregg Kokame who performed the surgery on the old lady. The doctor said that the bionic eye will only allow her to see motion and outlines in varying shades of grey. He added, “She’ll actually strat to see motion, actually start to see somebody walk into the room and be able to see different shades of grey.” Before her surgery, she was only able to detect bright lights but nothing else than that.
The cost for the device, as approved by the FDA, is $144,000. But the old woman’s bill was covered by Medicare.
In the procedure, they implanted a microelectrode array in the surface of the retina that directly sends signal to the brain, which is wirelessly connected to a camera built on a pair of glasses.
The bionic eye is not yet too advanced to clearly picture every detail, or all shades of color, but it might progress some time when technology advances.
The woman would be allowed to use her glasses after two weeks of full recovery from the operation. Kokame said that the patient is very enthusiastic and excited to see again.
Dr. Mark Humayan, the inventor of the bionic eye implant, hopes that the device will given to other patients with different conditions. He said, “’We have hundreds of millions of photo receptors in our eye, hundreds of millions, and with only 60 pixels patients who were completely blind can see large objects, can tell a table from a chair or a knife from a fork or a plate so it’s very exciting to see what the brain is able to fill in.”
After the invention of the bionic eye, it took them 25 years to develop the procedure that will allow it to be attached to an actual human being.
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