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American Morning
New Bionic Technology Holds Promise of Sight For Millions
Aired June 13, 2002 - 08:50 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time for our "House Call." We have some eye-opening medical news this morning. New bionic technology holds the promise of sight for millions.
That is the focus of our "House Call" report. Here is medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Artificial vision for the blind was once the stuff of science fiction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Commander Laforge is my chief engineer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Commander.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's been attending a seminar...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA: But now, artificial is a reality and, some say, it's 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 VISION PATIENT: You don't lose anything. You actually have a fifth sense restored, and that is what I just absolutely adore about this device. You're no longer blind. You might be blind to some objects, some situations, but you are not totally blind any more.
GUPTA: Jens is one of the first of eight patients to benefit from this bionic eye technology. A Canadian farmer and father of eight, Jen's completely lost his eyesight 18 years ago in a snow machine accident. Now, he's able to navigate through rooms, find doors, and even drive.
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 the 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 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 belt. The images are processed and sent to electrodes implanted in the 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 BOBELLE DOBELLE INST.: It is actual vision. It doesn't compare to -- it simply is lower resolution, grainy et cetera.
JEN: It was like, I would say, throwing back the curtains in the morning when you get up and letting the sun shine in. I would equate it to that feeling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: That is absolutely extraordinary.
GUPTA: Remarkable.
ZAHN: Dr. Gupta is with us in the studio.
GUPTA: People say vision is one of the greatest -- it's one of the greatest fears, people losing their vision. These people are getting it back.
ZAHN: It's Interesting that he sees in black and white, right?
GUPTA: Right.
ZAHN: So there is no coloration in it.
GUPTA: There is not color. And someone said it's kind of like looking at a sport's scoreboard. You see the lights light up for different scores and things like that it's sort of like that. What's solid now becomes sort of these light pattern, these dot matrix patterns. But you can see the figures, you saw him driving.
ZAHN: Amazing.
GUPTA: Yes, really remarkable.
ZAHN: How expensive is the technology?
GUPTA: It is pretty expensive. They say about $50,000-$70,000. That includes the operation, which incidentally is done under local anesthesia. It includes all the gears, the fancy glasses that you saw there, and includes some training, which is necessary to sort of get used to this sort of stuff. In comparison, a seeing eye dog -- and I was sort of interesting in hearing this -- $40,000 to get a fully trained seeing eye dog.
ZAHN: So you're not talking about a tremendous uptick. But the question I have, would all blind people benefit from this surgery?
GUPTA: It's an excellent question. And we asked the scientist that same thing. And what it is that your body still has to have some of its own ability to see. The brain has to be able to see, meaning people that lost their vision later in life as opposed to a child who is born blind. A child who's born blind doesn't have all the same circuitry in the brain for it to ever work. This guy lost his vision, actually a very remarkable story, lost vision in one eye, and then two years later, lost vision in the other eye, both from trauma. The point is, his brain worked perfectly fine before, he was able to see, and now they're sort of reprogramming that.
ZAHN: Is there anybody opposed to this new development?
GUPTA: You know, we hear a lot about this with the deaf culture, people being opposed to all these new gadgets with regards to trying to empower deaf people to be able hear. We are not getting any sense with regards to people being able to see. People who are totally blind, no light perception, giving them the ability to drive a car and conduct their lives.
ZAHN: I was very moved by watching this young man's world just open up before him. The question is, would insurance policies in the country cover this, or do you have to be independently wealthy to be able to through this?
GUPTA: There have been a lot of neurostimulators before this for various sorts of things. We've heard about them with Parkinson's and things like that. And it takes a while usually before the insurance companies start to cover them. But after a while, in part, they do start to cover at least some of it, and that's what they feel they'll do with this particular device as well. You can't get it here in the United States yet. There is eight patients that were operated, all been in Portugal. The FDA still has to approve this, but maybe the insurance coverage will come after that.
ZAHN: Fascinating. Thanks, Dr. Gupta. Thanks for dropping by. Nice to see you in person once again. It's so much better than having to look at you on the monitor hundreds of miles away.
GUPTA: Thank you.
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