Symptoms, Causes and Treatment of Color Blindness

Color blindness is a condition where the level of quality of a person's vision of color decreases. Color blind people will find it difficult to distinguish certain colors or even all colors. Color blindness is a disorder that will suffer for a lifetime. However, color blind patients can train themselves to adapt to this condition, so that activities carried out by people with color blindness can run normally in their daily lives.

Symptoms, Causes and Treatment of Color Blindness

Factors Causing Color Blindness

Our eyes have special nerve cells that contain pigments that react to color and light. These nerve cells contain pigments that react to certain color colors. Damage that occurs to the cell or the malfunction of this pigment causes specific colors detected by the eye.

Damage that occurs in cells due to gene abnormalities that decrease from parents to children. Besides being due to gene weakness, several other factors cause cell damage, including:

• diabetes, glaucoma, or multiple sclerosis

• Drug side effects of digoxin, ethambutol, phenytoin, chloroquine, and sildenafil

• Exposure to carbon disulfide and styrene chemicals

• Injury to the eye due to an accident.

Age is also a factor that causes a person to experience color blindness. Along with increasing age, there is a decrease in the eye's ability to capture light and color. This is a natural process that can happen to everyone.

Color Blind Symptoms and Types

Color blindness is a condition where the sufferer has difficulty distinguishing specific colors or even the overall color. Symptoms that are felt by each patient can be different, depending on which pigment cells are damaged or not functioning.

The symptoms of color blindness are divided into three types: red-green, yellow-blue, and total. Each type has a different symptom character.

• Yellow and green colors look red.
• Orange, red, and yellow look like green.
• Red looks like black.
• Red looks brownish yellow, and green looks like a cream color.

Color Blind blue-yellow:

• This type also includes partial color blindness and has the character of:
• Blue looks green, and it is difficult to distinguish pink from yellow and red.
• Blue looks like green and yellow looks like gray or bright purple.

Unlike the two types above, a person suffering from a kind of total color blindness has difficulty distinguishing all colors. Even some sufferers can only see white, gray, and black.

Total color blindness

Unlike the two types above, a person suffering from a type of total color blindness has difficulty distinguishing all colors. Even some sufferers can only see white, gray, and black.

Color Blind Diagnosis

Some people do not realize that they are color blind. That is because they have adapted to the situation. For example, because they know that the leaf's color is green, then think and assume that the color green is the color they see.

Therefore, checking for color blindness is deemed necessary. Besides knowing the condition of eye health, the examination results also become one of the requirements for a job that requires careful eyes to see colors—for example, recruitments of pilots, engineers, and doctors.

In examining color blindness, there are several types of color blindness tests used by doctors, namely:

• Ishihara test. The Ishihara test is the most frequently used. In the process, the doctor will ask the patient to recognize the numbers or letters that are faintly printed on the image in colored dots.
• Color preparation test. In this test, the patient must arrange different colors according to the gradation of the color density.

The doctor can do additional checks to find out the cause of color blindness. Suppose color blindness is caused by an illness or side effects of the drug. If the examination results are also used by the doctor to determine the appropriate treatment method.

Recognize Color Blindness Early

No treatment method can restore the patient's ability to see color completely. However, patients can train themselves to get used to the color blindness suffered.

It is important for parents to recognize the character of symptoms and signs of color blindness in children. It is intended that parents can help children adapt to their conditions so that school activities or their daily lives can continue.

Signs of someone suffering from color blindness can vary but are easily recognizable. Some of them are:

• It is difficult to take lessons in school-related to color.
• Difficult to distinguish the color of raw and cooked meat
• Difficult to distinguish the color of traffic lights
• All difficulties experienced by color-blind patients can be reduced by several attempts, such as:
• Asking for help from relatives or family when experiencing difficult situations related to color, such as matching the colors of clothes used or seeing whether cooked meat is cooked.
• Use bright lights at home to help clarify colors.
• Using available supporting technology, such as special applications, can detect and tell an object's color.
• Using a special eyepiece. This special lens can help patients detect specific colors. However, this lens is not always suitable and works effectively for everyone.

Suppose the color blindness experienced is the impact of a disease or side effects of the drug. In that case, the doctor will take care of overcoming the cause. Discuss further with the doctor regarding the efforts that can be made so that the color blindness suffered is not too disruptive to the activity.

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