This diagnostic test will help determine if you suffer from
red-green colour blindness.
Can you identify the following numbers?
If you had difficulties identifying the numbers you may be
suffering from red-green colour blindness and should consult your local
physician.
Continue watching this video to learn more about this condition.
How do we perceive colour? Colour vision works by using
cells called cones that are located within the retina of
the eye. Humans are trichromats.
Meaning, they have three types of cones that are sensitive to
different colours of light. The S cones are sensitive to blue light.
The M cones are sensitive to green light and the
L cones are sensitive to red light.
Color blindness occurs when the cone cells don't function properly.
There are three overarching forms of colorblindness.
Monochromatism is the absence of all three cones resulting in
the inability to perceive colour.
Dichromatism is the presence of only two cones.
Anomalous trichromatism
is when all three cones are present,
but colour perception is atypical.
Red-green colour blindness
falls into the category of dichromatism and anomalous
trichromatism and is scientifically referred to as protanopia/
protanomaly and deuteranopia splash deuteranomaly.
Protanopia is a loss of red
L cones resulting in only green-blue colour perception and deuteranopia
is a loss of green M cones resulting in red-blue
colour perception.
According to Birch in 2012,
the overall prevalence of red-green colour blindness is approximately
8% in men and 0.4%
in women that are European Caucasians, 5% male Asians and
4% male Africans.
These are chromosomes. Human beings
have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes.
The last pair,
is called sex chromosomes
as they determine an individuals sex. XY represents males whereas XX
represents females.
Chromosomes are structures,
that contain genes and genes contain instructions that are responsible
for the development of cells, tissues and organs.
Studies show that
red-green colour blindness is due to an atypical X chromosome.
As a result,
the prevalence for this condition is higher in males compared
to females,
because it's x-linked recessive. Since males
have one X chromosome
and females have two, this means that males are more
susceptible to the condition. For a female to express the red-
green colour blindness phenotype,
both of their X chromosomes must be affected.
If only one X chromosome is affected and they are
termed a carrier and don't display
the phenotype,
but are capable of passing down the condition to their
children.
Although people with red-green colour
blindness can live relatively normal lives,
there are some limitations.
Those that suffer her from the condition are not able
to choose certain career fields such as police enforcement, fire-fighting
and piloting.
Here are some information from the perspective of someone with red-green
color, blindness meet Jordan.
How did you know you had a visual colour deficiency?
So I would say I was probably about 8 years old the first time
I thought I may have colour blindness
I was colouring in map in school and I coloured the
ocean purple, and the teacher made a comment about it
and suggested that maybe I should be tested for colour
blindness. So,
I went to an optometrist.
They gave me a test and sure enough,
Yes,
I do.
In fact have it.
How does this condition impact your daily life?
So in my daily life it impacts me
just looking at a computer system that I use in my work-place, there are a
lot of different graphs that we use, where all of
the different information are just
colour-coded, a lot of them being similar to one another.
We had to go in and make a accommodations for myself,
changing the colors of different lines that I can differentiate
them as well as different types of equipment
maybe running in a manual operation or an automatic
operation and it's a red versus the green colour to
identify which is which so I often need help from
co-workers in order to differentiate.
Jordan was asked to sort which colours he thought looked
similar.
Notice that Jordan was unable to distinguish between the light
green, red and orange.
He also grouped the mint colour with the pinks and
the grey with the light purple.
Did you know that there are AIDS available to help
those that are color-blind?
Although these products are not capable of enabling you to
perceive colour
the same way as a person without this condition,
they help differentiate shades. The Badawy at
the University of Birmingham has developed dyed
contact lenses that allow for better differentiation between red and
green colours.
Thank you for watching.
We hope you are more informed about red-green colour
blindness.
If you think you may be suffering from this condition,
we recommend you consult the doctor and refer to the
following resources for more information.