Color Blindness, or color deficiency, is prevalent in around 10% of males in today’s society. It occurs when cells in the retina of the eye fail to respond correctly to different light wavelengths. The eye consists of photoreceptors called rods and cones. Rods in themselves can not help in perception of color; cones are the backbone of color perception. Color blindness occurs when there are deficiencies in the cones or if they do not work at all (Color Blindness Explained).
Color blindness is not a life-threatening disorder and is manageable if the right steps are taken.
Here’s my story:
For as long as I have known him, my cousin has lived with red-green color deficiency. The first symptoms started to show when we were younger at family parties; we would get into arguments about certain colors of toys and characters in cartoons. After this occurred and was resolved by our parents, on multiple occasions, his mom decided to take him to the doctor around 3rd grade. He was diagnosed with red-green color deficiency and has been managing ever since.
In the beginning, it was very confusing for him and was hard to work with especially at school. His most prominent obstacle was determining the colors on a traffic light whenever he started driving; he had to learn the location of the light rather than base it on the slight hue that the light had in order to know when to stop or go. Color deficiency is not curable, as there are lenses and contacts that could possibly enhance some of his colors, but he has not tried them.
The eye is a very complex structure with many components that all have significant importance. The deficiency in cones of the retina account for color deficiency and are not able to be fixed, but the deficiency itself can be managed with time.
“Color Blindness Explained.” All About Vision, www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/colordeficiency.htm.
All images obtained from Google images