Color blindness means that you have difficulty separating certain colors from each other. The most common form is innate and hereditary and makes it difficult to distinguish between red and green.
What is color blindness?
There are two types of photosensitive cells on the retina of the eye. They are called studs and rods. The rods are very light-sensitive, which means we can see in the dark. The pins respond to the different wavelengths of light. It allows us to see different colors. There are three types of pins. They react mainly to the wavelengths corresponding to the colors blue, red and green. All the colors we see are then a mixture of the three colors. Color blindness means that one or more of the tap types do not work properly. It may also be that you lack a certain type of pin. Then you can not see the color of the wavelength for which the pin is sensitive, but mix it with another color.
Different types of color blindness
There are different types of color blindness. Color blindness means that you have difficulty distinguishing different colors. The most common type is red-green color blindness. There is also yellow-blue color blindness.
There is also a type of color blindness that means that a person does not see any colors at all but sees the world in grayscale. It is very unusual.
Red-green color blindness
The most common form of color blindness is that you have difficulty distinguishing between red and green. It is called red-green color blindness.
This means that you also have trouble seeing the difference between colors that have parts of red and green in them. You may have trouble seeing the difference between blue and purple. That’s because purple is a mixture of blue and red. You may also have difficulty seeing the difference between green and brown because brown is a mixture of green and red.
Red-green color blindness does not mean that you see the lawn as red or the stop signal as green. Without it, you will find it difficult to see the difference between red and green.
Red-green color blindness means that the type of pin that detects red colors or the type that detects green colors does not work properly or is completely missing.
In the upper picture, you see the pens as a person with full-color vision, who can see all colors. In the lower picture you see the pencils much like a person with red-green color blindness does, but it can vary. The colors can look different on different screens. This image cannot be used to diagnose.
Blue-yellow color blindness
A more unusual form is blue-yellow color blindness. Blue-yellow color blindness does not mean that you have difficulty distinguishing the colors blue and yellow. It’s called blue-yellow color blindness because you find it hard to tell the difference between colors that are between blue and yellow on the color scale.
Blue-yellow color blindness means you have trouble seeing the difference between blue and green and the difference between yellow and pink. For example, it can be difficult to distinguish, for example, between different shades of purple that are perceived as blue. Other colors can be perceived a little differently.
Blue-yellow color blindness means that the type of drops in the eye that detect blue colors do not work properly or are completely missing.
In the upper picture, you see the pens as a person with full-color vision, who can see all colors. In the lower picture, you see the pens much like a person with blue-yellow color blindness does, but it can vary. The colors can look different on different screens. This image cannot be used to diagnose.
When and where should I seek care?
Seek care at a health care center or an optician if you, as an adult, feel that you have had a change in color.
Seek care at a health care center or student health if you as an adult think your child does not see all the colors.
Investigation
The color vision is checked if the doctor suspects that you as an adult have any disease or if you are taking any medicine that affects the optic nerve and which can cause color blindness.
Children’s color vision can be examined within student health. Then the same test is used for adults.
Investigating color vision is called doing a color-sensing study.
How is the investigation going?
A color mind test can go in several ways. The most common is that you get to look at color images with spots and dots in different shades of color. These form clear patterns if you can see all the colors. Then you see, for example, a number or a line. You who are color blind see a mess of color stains, another number or another course of the line.
Another variant of the survey is that you should place a number of different colored round pieces in a row so that the colors that are most similar to each other are next to each other.
With the help of the survey, it is possible to determine which areas of color vision are not reduced.
It takes about five to ten minutes to browse through the pictures or put the pieces. The doctor examines one eye at a time. As an adult, you get about ten seconds to interpret an image.
At some eye clinics, which are aimed at children, both visual acuity and color vision can be examined on young children. It is done with the help of different colored objects and by seeing how the child behaves. This examination is done if the doctor suspects that the child has a visual impairment that should be treated.
It is important that you understand the information
In order for you to be active in your care and to make decisions, it is important that you understand the information you receive from the healthcare personnel. Ask questions if you don’t understand. You can also ask to have the information printed so that you can read it peacefully.
You may also have the right to get help from an interpreter if you have a hearing loss.
Various causes of color blindness
Hereditary color blindness
All children born in many countries are assigned a legal gender. The gender of the child depends on the body’s appearance and its set of sex chromosomes. The sex chromosomes are X and Y. A child who has two X chromosomes is assigned to the gender woman. A child who has an X chromosome and a Y chromosome are assigned the gender.
The red-green color blindness is located on the X chromosome. In males, color blindness occurs if the X chromosome’s appearance of color is damaged. In order for color blindness to occur in women, both the appearance of the color of the X chromosomes must be damaged. It’s unusual. It is more common for men to have red-green color blindness.
Blue-yellow color blindness is also hereditary but is not bound to any gender.
Color blindness caused by an injury
Occasionally, and most often in adulthood, color blindness can be caused by an injury or inflammation of the optic nerve or retina of the eye.
How does color blindness affect life?
Color blindness is not treatable but is a condition that you will have throughout your life. Most people have no problems but sometimes it can be difficult to be color blind. For example, it may be difficult to access information based on color such as a metro map or a bus map. It can also be difficult to see red berries among green leaves if you have red-green color blindness.
Color blindness in traffic
You can take a driving license if you have color blindness. The traffic lights upper red stop signal and a lower green driving signal can be understood by seeing which one is lit.
Some professions are not suitable if you cannot see all the colors
Some professions are not suitable if you cannot see all the colors. It is about professions such as police, pilot, train driver and sea captain. There it is important that you can distinguish colors of lamps and marks.
You as a relative can customize the information
It may be good if you as a relative adapt information based on color to the one who is color blind. You can do this by giving the different colors a symbol.
Children and color blindness
It can be difficult for a child to understand why colors that look the same have different names. It can make them frustrated.
It is good to tell the staff at the preschool or school about the child’s color vision. Then the staff can adapt activities and lessons according to it. It can make life easier for the child.