By Maria Contreras, 6th period.
What is color blindness?
For most people colorblindness means having trouble seeing red, blue, or green. In rare cases, a person can't see any color at all.
What's your chance?
There are about 3 Million cases in the U.S per year.
1 in 10 men have some form of color blindness. Very few women are color blind
Mode of Inheritance
Color blindness is inherited and is present since you've been born.
The Gene, which is responsible for this trait, is carried on the X Chromosome (23rd chromosome).
There is a higher chance for men to carry the Color blind gene.
Symptoms and signs of color blindness.
You may be able to see some colors but not others. You may not be able to tell the difference between some reds and greens but can see blue and yellow easily.
You may see many colors, so you may not know that you see color differently from others.
You may only be able to see a few shades of color, while most people can see thousands of colors.
In rare cases, some people see only black, white, and gray
How do you Identify Color blindness?
Today there are several types of tests which determine if you are color blind or not.
In one test, you look at sets of colored dots and try to find a pattern, such as a letter or number. The patterns you see help you know which colors you have trouble seeing.
In another test, you arrange colored chips in order according to how similar the colors are.
Most doctors recommend eye tests at the age of 3 or 4, or at least once before entering preschool.
Treatments and cures.
Inherited color vision problems cannot be treated or cured.
You can find ways to make up for a color vision problem, for example, today wearing color contact lenses may help a person see differences in colors, but they cannot provide normal color vision.
Future problems correlating with color blindness.
In children, color vision problems can affect learning abilities and reading development.
People who are colorblind may not be able to get a job that requires the ability to see colors accurately. For example, electricians, painters, fashion designers are jobs in that someone who is colorblind is not able to do properly.