The ol' hairy eyeball gets an upgrade

[BrentD]

This is from an interesting NPR story. There might be hope for those of us that feel our iron-sight abilities slipping away a little bit every day. If you google up the story, you can get an audio that is a bit more detailed, but in a nutshell this device could permit both near and far focus. Just the sort of thing that we older shooters need more than anything.

This is the audio http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlaye ... =359233297


This is a shorter synopsis of the invention.

For Lori Bandt, who works as a medical technician and an EMT in a suburb of Madison, Wis., the print on vials of medication has become so difficult to read that if she forgets her reading glasses she has to resort to having a younger EMT worker read the directions. The 45-year-old says: "I'm just stuck."

And she's hardly alone: 1 in 5 Americans needs reading glasses or bifocals because of presbyopia. With age, the formerly pliable lens of the eye starts to harden. That makes it harder for muscles to squeeze the lens to focus on nearby objects.

But eye doctors are trying to come up with options for people like Bandt. Her doctor, Dr. John Vukich, is one of them. The corneal inlay, called KAMRA, is a flexible doughnut-shaped ring that is surgically inserted into the eye and creates a sort of artificial pupil. He is working as a consultant to the company marketing the implant.

The surgical procedure uses a laser to make a small incision in the very front of the cornea, where the ring is placed. The results with a corneal inlay are "immediate," says Vukich, restoring near vision right away. And there isn't much down time for patients. He says the procedure is far less complicated and invasive than LASIK.

The KAMRA corneal inlay has been used in Europe since 2011, and is also being used in South America and Asia.

A graphic shows a retinal prosthesis implanted in a human eye. Science Bionic Eye Opens New World Of Sight For Blind But members of an FDA advisory panel have raised concerns about the safety of the device. At the committee's meeting in June, the company presented data from a 36-month trial that found that 83 percent of the 478 patients enrolled achieved visual acuity of at least 20/40 or better.

However, that did not include 44 patients who dropped out of the study and had the corneal inlays removed. Most of those patients, 86.4 percent, said the device didn't improve their vision like they expected.

Had the patients been included, the device's efficacy rate would have dropped to 75.8 percent. Officials also noted that even after removal of the inlay, some patients still had hazy vision or fluid buildup in the cornea.

Isabella Beukes, of Santa Rosa, Calif., has been legally blind for more than 40 years. An experimental treatment derived from embryonic stem cells seems to have enabled her now to see not just color but also some shapes.

The FDA advisory panel determined that the device was effective, voting 7 to 1 in favor. But when it came to safety, it voted 4 to 5 against the inlay. The FDA hasn't decided whether it will approve KAMRA, but it often follows the advice of its advisory committees.

The fact that some patients had vision problems after the inlays were removed is a problem, says Dr. Anne Sumers, an ophthalmologist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. "This is the windshield of the eye, and the windshield of the eye needs to be crystal clear like your car windshield," she says. "If there's haze or fluid in it, it's not crystal clear."

Even so, the technology has great potential, says Sumers, and might prove a reasonable option for aging boomers in the near future.

[gamekeeper]

I think I'll pass on this one....

[Gobblerforge]

A diopter.
Gobbler

[BrentD]

no

[Sixgun]

mmmmmmmmmm....sounds like what I need but I dont like things stuck in my eye. I'll stay with my double bifocals...they really do work.-----6

[Griff]

mmmmmmmmmm....sounds like what I need but I dont like things stuck in my eye. I'll stay with my double bifocals...they really do work.-----6

+1. For now, but I'll be watchin' it!

[Rusty]

I'm kind of biased when it comes to medical procedures. My dad was an old school doctor who went by the philosophy that there is no such thing as elective surgery. If you can elect to not have it, don't. You always have to look at the worst thing that could happen. An eye infection could cause you to lose the use of the eye all together. Poor vision that can be corrected with glasses is no trade off to no vision.

[BrentD]

Clearly, the technology is not yet ready for prime time. But it could be soon. And for some, it might be a good thing. It is hard to argue that Laser eye surgery is, in general, a bad thing, though some elect to not do it. Cochlear implants would be another elective surgery that many might choose, yet others would not.

So, to each his own, but you can't choose if you don't know about it.

Meanwhile, some folks live in fear of the worst possible result and their lives are shaped by all the things that they never attempted because of that fear.

Other folks plunge headlong into the next greatest thing, thinking only of the grandest of outcomes. And, often, they pile up in a dramatic crash and burn.

Meanwhile, most of the rest of us slide down somewhere near the middle of the road, titrating risk against benefit, each of us finding our own comfort zone.

For me, iron sight competitive shooting and hunting is incredibly important. I can feel, everyday, a little bit more of my visual acuity slipping as I'm looking ol' #57 in the face right now. So, this is a part of technology that I will watch very closely as it may significantly extend the window for me to chase a championship.

[piller]

I wear bifocal contacts, and am fine with them. This device is a little beyond what I would trust.

[K1500]

Aging boomers...we are into boomers aging kits that need this. I used to find some humor in my father having difficulty with small print at close distances. I laugh no more.

[Blaine]

I try to buy quality glasses lens, and more than a few times bits and pieces of whatever have been stopped by them....They say I have the onset of cataracts, and that they can install new internal lens with the removal. We'll decide later on that little step....

[BrentD]

Glasses are great for protection, but they are not always the do all for competitive shooters in games that mandate iron sites. Lots of the old guys fade away simply because of their eyesight. In BPCR at least, there is the scope class competition to gravitate to after iron sights are not an option. In some games, you simply have to put up the guns. Perhaps this technology can develop enough to prevent that for some of us that are not too far from our own iron-sight Waterloos.

[Blaine]

Glasses are great for protection, but they are not always the do all for competitive shooters in games that mandate iron sites. Lots of the old guys fade away simply because of their eyesight. In BPCR at least, there is the scope class competition to gravitate to after iron sights are not an option. In some games, you simply have to put up the guns. Perhaps this technology can develop enough to prevent that for some of us that are not too far from our own iron-sight Waterloos.

I only have two rifles that work for me with leaf sights: A Marlin 1894 in .44 Mag, and an old Winchester 94. Them come up with the sights perfectly aligned, and I just put the front on target.....Some others with aperture, or ghost rings are just fine, as it doesn't seem necessary to focus on the back ring....So far, I can make the front sight and the target work for me....(I have a couple scoped shooters, too...SO much easier to shoot them.)

[BrentD]

Blaine I thought you blocked my posts? Darn

Do you shoot competitively?

[Blaine]

Blaine I thought you blocked my posts? Darn

Do you shoot competitively?

I thought I'd cut you some slack and let you enjoy my wisdom and humor.

No, I don't. I did enter one contest at the Fort Lewis range many years ago, and won first place with my new Ruger MKII Government Target. I still have that one. Most accurate shooter I have.