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The Current And Future Implications Of Optical Prosthetics

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What are the current and future implications of optical prosthetics?

Jacob Eng
003137-0015
Extended Essay: Design Technology

May 2016

Word Count:

Introduction

For a long time it has been impossible to make a prosthetic for the eye. Instead people have made tools to fix existing eyes that just improve existing The human eye is a very intricate system that is extremely hard to replicate. We could make prosthetic limbs that work the same way as the originals, prosthetic hearts that can replace old and failing hearts, but never been able to make a prosthetic eye that can actually see. There are 10 million people in the U.S. and many more worldwide who are blind or are facing blindness due to diseases of the retina, diseases like macular degeneration, and there 's little that can be done for them. There are some drug treatments, but they 're only effective on a small fraction of the population. And so, for the vast majority of patients, their best hope for regaining sight is through prosthetic devices. The problem is that current prosthetics don 't work very well. They 're still very limited in the vision that they can provide. For example, with these devices, patients can see simple things like bright lights and high contrast edges, not very much more, so nothing close to normal vision has been possible. One To know about how to cure blindness we must first know how the eye works and more importantly what are the different causes of

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