A relatively new company called the eSight Corpration has designed special glasses that allow some people who have been declared “legally blind” to be able to see pretty clearly.
Their eyes actually perceive more when they look at the screen than they can with their natural eyesight, Taylor West explains. The eSight spokesman goes on to discuss that the device will not help patients with lack of vision or total blindness because it is designed to operate on a specific family of eye impairments. It can, however, be adjusted to fit the abilities and preferences of the user.
Vision-impaired new mother Kathy Beitz, for example, explains “I see better in lower lights; and so I use a higher contrast with white on black.”
Her older sister Yvonne Felix also suffers from partial blindness, which might explain her willingness to work with eSight.
Felix, an eSight fundraising coordinator, explains, “I’ve been working towards fundraising for the eyewear so that [Beitz wouldn’t have to] go without seeing her first born’s face, and miss out on that experience.”
Beitz continues, “Being a person with a disability [who has] two children of her own, she knew the struggles of being a legally blind or blind parent. So she was very adamant [about getting] the glasses for me and work with me to use them, so when I did have him, I got to experience everything that she didn’t. When I knew I was getting the glasses, I got very excited. I knew then I would be able to read books to the baby and be a part of that experience…it gave a huge independence to my parenting skills.
While the capabilities of these glasses are limited to one family of vision impairment, it is certainly a major step forward that could find blindness a thing of the past, in the future.