Color Blindness

What is color blindness?

Color blindness is a condition in which a person has trouble telling the difference between various shades of color. Color blindness does not mean that a person sees things in black and white. Generally, Optometrists and Doctors refer to the condition as 'color vision deficiency.'

Who is affected by color vision deficiency?

Almost all color vision problems are inherited, and present at birth. It is estimated that 1 in every 12 males, and one in every 200 females, are born with some form of color vision deficiency.

In later life, some serious eye diseases, and certain medications can cause color vision deficiencies to appear.

How is a color vision deficiency inherited?

The 'colorblindness gene' is passed down through the mother's side of the family.

A colorblind male will have inherited the condition through his mother's genes (although she will probably not be colorblind).

A colorblind female will have inherited the condition through a combination of her mother's genes (probably not colorblind) and her father's genes(colorblind).

Looking for more information on the genetics of colorblindness?

Who should be tested for color vision deficiency?

People who should have there color vision checked

• All Boys
• Girls in whom color vision is suspect
• Children with a family history of color blindness (particularly from uncles or grandfather)
• Adults considering occupations that require fine color discrimination
• Adults considering occupations that have color vision standards
• Adults who have developed eye disease, such as cataract or macula degeneration

Color vision testing is fairly simple, and can be carried out with little difficulty from the age of 3 years (the child doesn't have to know the names of the colors).

What can be done about color blindness?

Medically, there is no cure for hereditary colorblindness, because the body lacks a given sensor for detecting particular colors.

Colorblind people often look for other cues to determine color. For example, if you couldn't tell the difference between the red and the green at a traffic light, you could still tell that the top light meant stop!

Other means of compensating for color blindness have been developed, such as specially tinted glasses. There are even computer programs available to help color blind people distinguish colors.