Dear AccessWorld Editor,
This letter is in response to Bill Holton's December 2017 article, Vision Technology in Clinical Trial Phase: New Approaches to AMD Treatment and Sight Restoration.
The fundamental problem with the Argus and Orion approach is that this technology can never produce more than very crude vision, regardless of the number of pixels or whether stimulating the retina or visual cortex of the brain.
To reproduce anything close to normal vision, an encoder will need to be added to convert light into a stream of impulses, referred to as action potential, that the brain is accustomed to receiving through normal photoreceptor and ganglion cell transduction. To my knowledge, Sheila Nirenberg at Cornell is the only one that has developed this technology, with astonishing results in mammals without photoreceptor function. The treatment includes glasses that have a built-in microprocessor that encodes light to be converted to a form that the brain is accustomed to receiving through normal photoreceptor and ganglion cell transduction. Under this approach the ganglion cells of the retina are made light sensitive through optogenetic gene therapy. The treatment also allows for alternative transduction methodology such as implanted electrodes similar to the Argus. Dr. Nirenberg is partnered with Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation (AGTC) and they expect to launch a clinical trial in 2018.
At least for now, that's where my vision restoration hope and investment rests.
Respectfully,
Dennis Walsh
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
This message is in response to Deborah Kendrick's December article, More Holiday Gift Ideas for People with Visual Impairments.
Thank you for the hours of preparation it must have cost you to write it. Great ideas. Great wish list for Santa.
Thanks,
Mary Hiland
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
This letter is in response to Deborah Kendrick's December article, Not Yet the Holy Grail: A Review of the ElBraille Braille-Based Portable Computing Device from VFO
I hope this finds you well. I mean no offense, and hope none is taken, but I feel it necessary to comment on Ms. Kendrick's article.
I expected to see a more in-depth review of the ElBraille, as opposed to an article more focused on the history of notetakers.
Do you feel there is a place for a more in-depth review of this notetaker in a future issue of AccessWorld? As a reader, I would greatly appreciate more detail before considering such an expensive purchase.
Thanks so much for your time!
Take care,
Shanda Adkins
