Color blindness is a topic that many people dont know anything about. Color blindness is the malfunction of cells in the eye that causes people not to see certain colors. In order for people to cure certain color blindness they must go through several test. Red/green color blindness is the most common among people. Many questions concerning color blindness will be answered thoughout this paper. Such as what is color blindness, what goes wrong/why does it happen, how do people treat it, what are the symptoms, what are the limitations, and how is it diagnosed. 

                                                                   What is color blindness? 

                       Color blindness is the malfunction of color sensitive cells in the retina. The retina is the nerve layer at the back of the eye that converts light nerve signals sent to the brain. A person with color blindness has trouble seeing red, blue, green, or mixture s of these colors. Also there are three types of cone cells which are light sensitive cells located in the retina, each type is either sensitive to red, green, or blue light. A person can see color when cones sense different amounts of the three basic colors. When one or more of these cones are absent or fails to function property properly you may not see color. Cone cells provide clean sharp color vision. Red/green blindness is most common among people, about 99%. Blue/yellow is rare and there is no commonly available test for it but very few people can see no color at all. People with color blindness may not notice the difference in color and can not see important stuff. 

                                                     What goes wrong and why does it happen?  

                       Firstly color blindness is most likely genetic or presented at birth. It could also be caused by aging, disease, or injury to the eye. Color blindness is inherited and present in males more than females. Cones containing single visual pigments selective for red, green, and blue are present in the normal human eye, but disturbances of color vision will occur if the amount of pigment per cone is reduced or if one or more of these three cone systems are absent. The gene for hereditary color blindness is in the X chromosone. Males have X-Y pairing and females have the X-X pairing and this is why it is more popular in males and is typically passed on to by a mother. It is rooted to chromosonal differences between males and females. Color blindness is the malfunction of the retina which converts light into electrical energy that is transmitted to the brain. This conversion is accomplished by two photoreceptor cells in the retina: rods and cones. Cones are responsible for encoding color sensitive to one of three wavelengths of light: red, green, and blue. 

                                                        How do people with color blindness treat it?

                     Inhereted color blindness cant be treated or corrected but aquired color vision problems can be treated depending on cause. For example if a cataract causes a problem with color vision, surgery may restore regular color vision. A color vision problem can have a significant impact on a persons life. It may effect learning abilities and reading developement and may also limit career choice but they eventually compensate. There is als laser eye surgery. The corneas' shape is precisely mapped by a computer which calculates exactly how much tissue needs to be removed. The computer controls an ultra violet laser to these specifications. There is also a fine knife used to cut a flap in the corneas surface , the flap is then folded aside and the laser is aimed at the tissue behind. The laser does not penetrate the tissue but gently vaporizes the corneal tissue making it thinner. the flap is folded back which helps the eye to heal quickly without stitches. Lastly the patient can usually see right away. 

                                                        What are the symptoms of color blindness?

                     This may vary with the severity of the persons condition. Very minor patients are not even aware that they see color differently from people with normal color vision. Severe color blindnss can only distinguish a few colors and probably is aware of there difference in sight. 

                                                  What are the limitations of people with color blindness? 

                      Many common activities rely on signs and signals that are color coded. For example traffic signs, signal lights, maps, and choosing clothes that match. Some rely on brightness or location. For example they may learn the order of the three colored lights on a traffic signal. This can be a serious problem for children and can lead to poor classworkand low self esteem. Career limitations are things such as color photographers designers, painters, weather forecasters. Aslo laws prohibit people with severe color vision problems from holding certain jobs such as airline pilot, police officers, and some positions in the military.

                                                                 How is color blindness diagnosed? 

                     Several tests are used to measure the ability to recognize difference in color. The most common, the pseudosoch romatic plate test, patients are asked to look at an arrangement of colored dots and identify a pattern such as a letter or number. It can often be determined by which patterns you cna and cannot see in various plates used for tests. For people with aquired color vision problems arrangement tests are used, arranging colored chips in sequence according to hue form a reference color but the color blind can not arrange the chips correctly


                      Overall color blindness is rare thoughout people and tests can be used to cure it. Also people might not know if they have color blindness depending on severity and career choices can be limited because of it.