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CNN Live Today
Artificial Vision Becomes Reality
Aired June 13, 2002 - 14:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: For many people, the term, "bionic," conjures up memories of popular television shows from the 1970s, "Bionic Man," "Bionic Woman." Remember them? Well, advances in medicine and technology are making artificial vision a reality for some blind patients.
And CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from New York with more on that -- hi there, Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Fredricka. I remember those shows really well actually.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
GUPTA: Yes. And all of those potentials that we heard so much about even 20-30 years ago are becoming a reality. We had a chance to go on a remarkable journey with a man who was once blind, but thanks to some new technologies, he seems to be getting along rather well.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): Artificial vision for the blind was once the stuff of science fiction. But now, artificial vision is a reality, and some say it is one of the greatest triumphs in medical history.
JOSEPH LAZZARO, AUTHOR: We are now at a watershed. We are at the beginning of the end of blindness with this type of technology.
GUPTA: The Dobelle Institute is now offering this hope to over two million completely blind.
JENS, ARTIFICIAL EYE PATIENT: You don't lose anything. You actually have a fifth sense restored, and that is what I just absolutely adore with this device. You are no longer blind. You might be blind to some objects, some situations, but you are not totally blind anymore.
GUPTA: Jens is one of the first of eight patients to benefit from this bionic eye technology. A Canadian farmer and father of eight, Jens completely lost his eyesight 18 years ago in a snow machine accident. Now, he is able to navigate through rooms, find doors and even drive.
JENS: I was able to very carefully drive, and look from my left side to my right side, making sure I was between the row of trees on the right and the building on my left. When I got near any obstruction in the front, I would see that there was an obstruction. I would also see the lack of obstructions. And then when I backed up, I would be able to inspect for obstructions there. It was really a nice feeling.
GUPTA: Artificial vision technology enables blind people an unparalleled opportunity for independence and mobility through a relatively simple idea. A digital video camera mounted on glasses captures an image and sends them to a small computer on the patient's belt. The images are processed and sent to electrodes implanted in the patient's visual cortex. These electrodes stimulate the brain, producing a pattern of bright spots that form an image.
On the right is an image similar to what the bionic eye patient sees. It is not solid, but represents a dot matrix pattern.
DR. BILL DOBELLE, DOBELLE INSTITUTE: It is actual vision. It doesn't compare to -- it simply is lower resolution, grainy, et cetera.
JENS: And it was like, I would say, throwing back the curtains in the morning when you get up and letting the sunshine in. I would equate it to that feeling.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: That is amazing, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
GUPTA: Yes, it really was. You know, they said it was the beginning of the end of blindness.
WHITFIELD: Yes!
GUPTA: That's something that really struck me. And, yes, amazing stuff.
WHITFIELD: So how much does this cost? And you know, how available is this?
GUPTA: Well, it's not really available yet. And I think that's important to point that out. The eight patient that have had this all had their operations in Portugal. It has not been approved in this country yet. It costs about $70,000. Those prices could vary certainly when it does get released. But it all does look very promising.
WHITFIELD: Wow! And that is truly amazing. Does it work for everybody?
GUPTA: Well, here is the thing. For the people that would most benefit from it are people who had probably lost vision later in life as opposed to someone who was born blind. People who are born blind only make up only a very small percentage. The people who lost vision later in the life, like the gentleman we heard about, they have all of the working machinery in the brain. And what this device does, it just sort of recircuits, bypasses some of the broken machinery, but all machinery that did work at one time. So those are the best candidates for this sort of operation.
WHITFIELD: Wow! OK. Well, there is real hope then. All right. From bionic eyes now to kind of bionic medical residents, if you will. I mean, at least that's the way they have been treated, haven't they? I mean, just going all around the clock all the time. It seems like there are going to be some real changes for them and for the patients, at least in the next year about their training schedule hours. What is that all about?
GUPTA: Right. Well, it's an old debate, Fredricka. Certainly, we hear about residents that work too many hours. I was a neurosurgical resident working 110 hours a week. It was not uncommon.
Here is what's new is the Graduate Medical Education, which oversees an accreditation of all of the hospitals, they are saying, you know, that really enough is enough. We are going to put down some strict guidelines saying that residents can only work 80 hours a week on average over four weeks. They should never work more than 24 hours at a time. They should get ten hours off in between shifts, and they should get a day off every seven days. These are the guidelines.
But what's especially new about it is that in addition to just being recommendations, there is also some real force behind this now. There are some real ideas that if a hospital doesn't abide by some of these regulations, some of these recommendations, that they may lose some of their accreditation. They may lose some ability to deliver medicine.
So they are really trying to make not only the recommendations, but also have a little bit of force behind them as well.
WHITFIELD: And a lot of residents have complained that they are working 100 hours in some cases. But who is going to be policing the hospitals then, if they are the ones who have to enforce making sure these students are getting ten hours' sleep in between, et cetera?
GUPTA: Well, yes, you are absolutely right. There are a lot of residents who do complain about that, and it's a problem. I mean, there have been studies where people have said, listen, if you operate after being up for 24 hours in a row, that's similar to operating after having a blood alcohol level of .1, which is legally intoxicated. No one would operate under the influence, yet people operate as if they were under the influence by staying up that long. So there is a lot of interest in this, no doubt.
The policing organizations are probably going to be more organizations that come out of the GME that actually go in the hospitals, talk to residents, actually observe resident work hours, things like that, and then go ahead and make the necessary recommendation and the necessary changes if the need should arise.
WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
GUPTA: Thanks, Fredricka. WHITFIELD: That is good news for everybody out there.
GUPTA: I think so.
WHITFIELD: All right.
GUPTA: See you.
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