eSight Glasses: The Hope for Legally Blind Patients

Call it eSight electronic glasses or electronic glasses or better still e-glasses but the marvelous thing this special piece of electronic glasses does for legally blind patients should not be overemphasized.

Before reviewing the technology behind this wonderful invention, let's know what legal blindness is all about first. Legal blindness simply means the level of vision loss or visual impairment that has been legally defined either to obtain eligibility for government-funded disability benefits or to limit activities like driving for safety purposes. Clinically, it is considered when the best corrected visual acuity in the better eye is less than or equals to 6/60 or if visual acuity in that eye is better than 6/60, visual field is less than or equals to 20 degrees in the widest diameter.

"Oh Mommy, there you're," little Christopher born with optic nerve hypoplasia (i.e optic nerve not fully developed before birth) exclaimed after wearing the eSight glasses for the first time. His mom, overwhelmed and excited told ABC News that Chris was born with an eye condition that does not allow him to see things unless he gets really close and can only watch television by sitting very close with his nose to the screen (i.e he can only see things that are five inches from his nose).

Another similar scenario occurred in Selinsgrove when Kaufman, a legally blind man sees the world perfectly well whenever he puts the eSight glasses on.

"I was able to read stories to my son. I can now see images at a distance, I can even see facial expressions and I can now watch my son play in the yard with his swing, something I was not able to do before," Kaufman said.

Kathy Beitz, a legally blind mother, saw her newborn baby for the very first time after giving birth to the baby. She was overwhelmed to see her baby and husband at the same time with the help of this amazing piece of glass.

"For the first baby that I get to actually look at being my own is very overwhelming. Even as I looked at my husband, it was such a good feeling. I got to fall in love with him," said Beitz. Hmmm! This is love at first sight, so touching. I nearly cry while watching her testimony.

Now I keep asking myself "but how", how does this eSight glasses really work, what’s actually behind this groundbreaking eSight technology. So I did a thorough research on eSight electronic glasses and observed that eSight glass is a hands-free wearable headset which carries a very small high-speed camera. The work of the camera is to capture everything the wearer is actually looking at and the captured video is streamed and sent to a proprietary software computer that processes each captured video pixel.

The processed (or enhanced) video is sent back to the headset which displays it on two organic-LED screens placed in front of the wearer's eyes. These enhanced video images are seen clearly by the wearer with unprecedented visual clarity thereby suppressing the effects of most visual impairments on the eSight glasses. All this processes will happen within a blink of an eye without discernible lag time for the wearer. Hence the user can instantly switch from near vision (reading a book) - to intermediate vision (looking at someone close to him/her) - to distance vision (looking through the window to see if it's raining). The wearer can even adjust the brightness, color, contrast and magnification of the images he/she is viewing and can also store them for future viewing.

Unfortunately, eSight will not work for people who are totally or profoundly blind but the good news is that it can work on people with low vision including individuals that are legally blind and this group represents about 86% of 300 million people in the world that are visually impaired or blind. The eye conditions were eSight works include the following:

1. Optic Nerve Hypoplasia
2. Stargardt's Disease
3. Ocular Albinism
4. Optic Atrophy
5. Macular Degeneration
6. Diabetic Retinopathy
7. Nystagmus
8. Retinopathy of Prematurity
9. Cone-Rod Dystropy
10. Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy
11. Some forms of Glaucoma
12. Some forms of Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Now what’s the price tag for this wonderful piece of glass? Hmmm! The price is quite expensive but considering the marvelous work this glass does especially when compared to the cost of blindness then the price tag worth it.

eSight glass comes with a price tag of fifteen thousand US dollars ($15,000). For inquiry on how to purchase eSight, kindly visit their website here: eSight Cooperation.

"I pray that one day every blind person in the world will get the ample opportunity to appreciate the aesthetical features of this planet earth. Thanks to eSight cooperation for this wonderful invention" said Dr. N.I Obinna: Editor-In-Chief, Sight Medical Blog.