VISION LOSS AND PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICES FOR VISION LOSS THAT WORK BETTER THAN MAGNIFYING GLASS

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For people with vision loss especially the most common vision loss called macular degeneration everyday tasks that require reading become challenging. You can buy magnifying glasses and use large print text to help you read when you have visison loss due to macular degeneration. However, magnifying glasses help with macular degeneration only up to a point. There are large electronic magnifying machines available but they are not portable. Now portable electronic magnifiers for people with macular deneration which you can carry around like a magnifying glass but which are even more powerful and useful are being sold.



"Dr. Bruce P. Rosenthal, chief of low-vision programs at Lighthouse International in Manhattan, which offers services for people with vision loss, said the portable magnifiers, with their built-in illumination and powerful electronics, have many advantages over traditional optical devices like magnifying glasses. “Optical devices can’t increase the contrast like these devices,” he said. “Loss in contrast causes as many problems as loss of visual acuity.”"



"One new portable device is the Quicklook Focus ($995), which weights 8.8 ounces. It has a camera head that sends digital video to the display, where the image is magnified, said Fergal Brennan, a design engineer at Ash Technologies outside of Dublin, the manufacturer. Users can pass the camera over a document they want to read, or hold it up at arm’s length to read the print on more distant objects".



"The Quicklook Focus should be available by mid-June, said James McCarthy, president of Freedom Vision, the Mountain View, Calif.-based distributor for Ash in North America (www.freedomvision.net). Another new device, the SenseView Duo ($1,299), available at the end of this month, has two cameras — one for close-up reading of text, the other for viewing objects eight feet or farther away, like classroom blackboards, said Doug Geoffray, co-owner of GW Micro, the Fort Wayne, Ind.-based distributor of the devices in North America (www.gwmicro.com). The product is made by the HIMS Company of South Korea".

healty medical Two Types of Macular Degeneration Most Common Cause Vision Loss

The Magnifying Glass Gets an Electronic Twist