"If God takes
the light from my eyes, my heart still sees. With my heart I can see
my life and
afterlife, and the heart knows what sight does not know", an
amazing Arabic poem by Azzedine
Ahmad, who is totally blind.]1] In Saudi Arabia, there are 159
thousand blind people which means
9.1% of the whole population who we see frequently.[2] There are
two kinds of blindness that occur
to people and affect them, total blindness, and partial blindness.
Total and partial blindness share
some similarities, but they also differ in some points.
Blindness is a situation when people
lose their ability to see things in both eyes. ]2[
Total blindness is losing sight, the ability to see light,
and things. ]2[ For example, Abdullah, my
grandfather, had total blindness. When he was six
years old, he lost his sight. Also, a lot of people
died, or lost their sight at the same year because of chicken pox
which is a communicable illness
caused by an infection with a
varicella zoster virus.]3 [Partial blindness is losing half vision
without the complete ability to see things.]
2[ There are many kinds of partial blindness.
One kind is
color blindness. Color blindness is the situation when people can
not distinguish colors’shades
especially green and red.]4[Color blindness has various
kinds. One of them is Tritanopes which
is
common to see the normal colors in light blue with grey, dark
purple with black, mid-green with
blue, or orange with red.]5[ For example, Prince William ,Queen Elizabeth’s
grandson, has color
blindness.]6[
There are several ways
that total blindness and color blindness are alike. The first similar thing
between total blindness and color blindness is that
they are both eye diseases, which is a disease
that appears in eyes and it
effects on vision. Second, just as total blindness, color blindness has the
same treatment. The way we
cure blindness depends on the cause of blindness. [4] There are many
strategies to treat blindness. One strategy to treat blindness is
the Argus II artificial retina which is a
retinal implant that helps people to
distinguish the difference between colors, but they can not have
their total vision back. [7] Another
way to treat blindness is by cataract surgery which is a surgery
done when the normal eye lens becomes cloudy
with unclear sight.[8] The last strategy to treat
blindness that geneticists and doctors
will use in the near future is by tweaking genes which is done
when the doctor injects (virus+gene)
to the patient's eye.[9] Another thing that they also have in
common is the
psychological condition of blind people. Totally blind people suffer from many
problems likewise color blind people. The first problem is the
social pressure. [10] For
example, the
way that people treat blind
people. The second problem is the personal and emotional effect of
blindness. [10] For instance, blind people feel insecure and
frustrated most of the time.
There are several ways that total blindness
and color blindness differ. The first difference
is the
cause of blindness. There
are many causes of total blindness such as low vision, diabetic
retinopathy, a lack of
insulin, childhood blindness, and glaucoma which is ''a harm to the optic
nerve and pressure in the
eyeball which leads to lose sight''.[11] Also, there are other common
causes of total
blindness that I will define separately.
The most common cause of total blindness
that affects people globally
is cataract , a clouding of the eye's lens.[11] Another cause of total
blindness is refractive error that happens when the shape of the
eye prevents it from seeing the
light correctly.[11] The other common causes of total blindness
especially in Africa are river
blindness that is caused by a parasitical worm, and trachoma which is a bacterial infection that
causes repeated conjunctivitis that irritates the eyes and creates
a mucous discharge.[11] On the
other hand, the cause of color blindness is that the eyes do not
make enough pigments for color
vision.[12] Second, although totally blind people have their own
system for reading which is braille
''a group of dots that can be read by fingers'', partially (color)
blind people do not have their own
system.[13] Kyoung-sook Shin , who is an author from South Korea,
is a good example. She wrote
a book in the Braille system,
'' Please Look After Mom''. Although it was published in nineteen
countries and translated to many languages, no one thought that there
was a Braille copy of it.[14]
The last contrast is that totally blind people are treated as
special needs while color blind people are
not treated as special needs. For instance, even though totally
blind people use a blind waking stick,
color blind people do not
use it. Another example : in Thailand they have
blind lanes to
guide totally blind people.
All in all, as a
kind of health education, people must
know blindness, blindness' types,
and similarity between the types. Besides knowing these things,
people need to know the
differences between the types to improve their knowledge.
References :
1. ''Blind People
in Arabic Literature'', 2011 Nov11, available
from an Arabic
forum called ''Alaloka'' which means the message.
http://majles.alukah.net/t92246/
2. Blindness and vision loss,
available from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003040.htm
3. Chickenpox (Varicella), Medically Reviewed by a Doctor on 2013May12nd,
available from http://www.medicinenet.com/chickenpox_varicella/article.htm#what_is_chickenpox_what_causes_chickenpox
4. Blindness, Medically Reviewed by a Doctor on 2013Nov 12nd,
available from http://www.medicinenet.com/blindness/page2.htm
5. Types of color blindness, available from http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/types-of-colour-blindness/
6. Twenty
Famous Color Blind People: They Rock Despite Having The Color Handicap,
available from http://www.improveeyesighthq.com/famous-color-blind-people.html
7.''
Curing blindness: Vision quest'', 2014 Sep10, available from http://www.nature.com/news/curing-blindness-vision-quest-1.15875#/
8.''Cataract Surgery'', medically Reviewed by a Doctor 2014Jan30, available from http://www.medicinenet.com/cataract_surgery/article.htm
9. Locke Susannah,''We're getting closer to a cure
for blindness'',2014Nov21, available from http://www.vox.com/2014/11/21/7259843/blind-cure-treatment
10. Cole
Nyla J., M.D., Leonard H. Taboroff, M.D., The psychological problems of the
congenitally blind child, 1954.
11. Sightsavers.net. Causes of blindness - Sightsavers
[Internet]. 2015 [cited 28 March 2015]. Available from: http://www.sightsavers.net/our_work/Causes_of_blindness/default.html
12. MedicineNet. Color Blindness Symptoms, Causes, Treatment - What is color blindness? -
MedicineNet [Internet]. 2015 [cited 28 March 2015]. Available from: http://www.medicinenet.com/color_blindness/page2.htm
13. Afb.org. What is Braille? - American Foundation for the
Blind [Internet]. 2015 [cited 28 March 2015]. Available from: http://www.afb.org/info/living-with-vision-loss/braille/what-is-braille/123
14. Ktlit.com. Shin Kyoung-sook [Internet]. 2011 [cited 28
March 2015]. Available from: http://www.ktlit.com/authors/shin-kyoung-sook/