[AI] Bionic Eye!
- From: "Dr. Vipin K. Malhotra" <vipin.malhotra@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <accessindia@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:29:56 +0530
More than one-million people in the united states are legally blind. Many of
them once had vision but tragically lost it. Now, there's a breakthrough device
that could give them back some of their sight!
Some call her the bionic woman.
"There's a set screwed in here," she says.
Others call her a medical miracle.
"Isn't that cool?" she remarks.
But Cheri Robertson has given herself another title.
"I just call myself the robo-chick," says Cheri.
Cheri is blind, but a new device allows her to see not with her eyes but with
her brain!
"Oh!"
15 years ago, cheri lost both of her eyes in a car accident. She was just 19
years old.
"When I realized yes, I am going to be blind, I thought, I guess I'm going to
learn to do things a little differently now," she says.
And she did. Cheri traveled to Portugal to become the sixteenth person in the
world to have special electrodes implanted in her brain. With the help of
a device, she could see again.
"I said, 'oh my god, I can see it. I can see it,' and I was just so excited!"
she remembers.
Neurosurgeon Kenneth Smith from the St. Louis University School of Medicine
says the procedure is the first to reverse blindness in patients without eyes.
"They are really seeing. The brain is getting impulses just like when you and I
see," he says.
A camera on the tip of cheri's glasses sends signals to a computer that's
strapped around her waist. The computer then stimulates electrodes in the brain
through a cord that attaches to the head. Patients see flashes of light and
outlines of objects.
"Whatever I see is just two splashes of light, so I know something is there,"
says Cheri.
Cheri says support from her mom and the local lion's club keeps her spirits
high.
"If I was all depressed I couldn't affect anybody's life for the good, and I
want to make a difference," says Cheri.
Friends, family and doctors say she already has.
The surgery is not performed in the U.S. yet, but, Dr. Smith hopes it will be
in the next five years. The main safety concern is an infection where the
port goes into the head. For the surgery to work, patients must have once had
vision.
Log onto
www.ivanhoe.com/vision
for more information.
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