Friday, June 20, 2008

Wireless Vision Implant: Implantable Prosthesis Lets Patients Perceive Visual Images

ScienceDaily (June 2, 2008)

"About 30 million people around the world have grown legally blind due to retinal diseases. The EPI-RET project has sought for a technical solution for the past twelve years to help these patients. This work has resulted in a unique system – a fully implantable visual prosthesis.

For twelve years, experts from different disciplines in the fields of microelectronics, neurophysics, information engineering, computer science, materials science and medicine have been working to develop a visual prosthetic device for patients who have lost their sight through diseases of the retina.

In September 2007, their effort was rewarded. In a clinical study including six patients, the team was able to demonstrate not only that a completely implantable vision prosthesis is technically feasible and proven functioning, but also that it enables patients to perceive visual images."

NOTE: To read the entire article, click on the title above.

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