Doctor's Report
Analysis: Colour Blindness
Symptoms:
- Sufferers can have issues identifying different colours, after the age of around four years and have the Inability to separate items by their colour/shade.
- People who are colourblind usually have difficulty with the colours green, yellow, orange, red or all colours.
- Overall inability to separate the shade or colour of two colours that fall into the category above.
Genetic Cause:
- Color blindness is usually something that you have from birth, and is caused when someone is born without certain light-detecting molecules, known as 'Cone Cells'
- Being born without certain Cone Cells is a hereditary gene passed down in the X Chromosome.
- Although this may be true for Red-Green Colour Blindness, it is different for both Rod Monochromacy and Blue Colour Blindness, as the gene that is responsible for these traits are located on different Chromosomes.
Forms and Treatment of Colour Blindness:
- There are several forms of Colour Blindness, with some sufferers only being unable to see certain colours, and others only seeing Black-and-White (Monochrome).
- This different forms are called: Red-Green Colour Blindness (unable to see red/green colours), Rod Monochromacy (total colour-blindness) and Blue Colour Blindness (unable to see colour blue).
- Although there is further study occurring around the world, there is currently no cure for any form of Colour Blindness at this point. There is a form of contact lense that alters the brightness of some colours to enhance their visibility, but according to some users, they find this disorientating rather than helpful.
Restrictions/Limitations:
- Living with any form of Colour Blindness can be difficult for some individuals, and it is something they must deal with on a day-to-day basis.
- Having any form of Colour Blindness can affect the person's ability to read certain forms of collated data, such as Pie Charts and Bar Graphs.
- During Schooling, the person may have trouble reading off of Green Chalkboards if a certain colour of Chalk is used.
- Children may find learning certain concepts harder, as colour-coding is common practice in classrooms (especially in younger education).
- Adults cooking may find it hard to see if their food is cooked the correct way, as they could be unable to notice the shade of the product.
Statistics:
Detection:
- As stated earlier, from the age of 4, it is possible to detect forms of Colour Blindness.
- There are many different tests for Colour Blindness, e.g: The Ishihara Color Test, Cambridge Color Test, The HRR Pseudoisochromatic Color Test, and The Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Test.
- All of these tests test the patient in different ways, but The Ishihara Color Test is the most common test performed, and you may have already done it yourself. It involves looking at different dotted circles, each coloured and patterned in different ways, to test if the patient can see the patterns.