Minds Eye Travel

The following by Lauren Tappan:

Mind’s Eye Travel is an organization that creates tours for people who are blind or visually impaired.

Our prices include sighted guide assistance and help with the following:

Immigration Documents
Boarding Passes
Cruise Line Bag Tags
Embarkation & Disembarkation
Orientation While Onboard Ship
Shore Excursions
Braille Menus (when available)
Airline Bookings

DANUBE WALTZ
Passau to Budapest
Viking River Longship Njord
8 Days, 6 Guided Tours, 4 Countries
May 2, 2015

This 8-day itinerary takes you through four of Europe’s most enchanting
countries along the storied Danube River; Austria, Germany, Hungary and
Slovakia. Explore Budapest’s imperial and Art Nouveau delights, and take a
comprehensive tour of beautiful Bratislava’s baroque and Gothic buildings
and fountains. In Austria, discover why Vienna is “the waltz capital,” sail
through the spectacular Wachau Valley, and explore the cobblestone streets
and charming town squares of Dürnstein. And in Germany, admire Passau’s
ancient fortress and Italianate architecture. Includes a tour of the
900-year-old baroque Benedictine abbey at Melk and a full-day excursion to
the scenic city of Salzburg.

for more info:

http://www.mindseyetravel.com/trip/danube-waltz-viking-river-cruise

Blindness Fact Sheet for Stem Cell Research

Calif. Inst. for Regenerative Medicine funds several research projects working to understand the basic mechanisms of macular degeneration and to develop novel stem cell-based therapies for the disease.

Nearly a million Americans are blind, with another 2.4 million suffering significant visual impairment. While there are several causes of blindness, the leading cause of all visual impairment is age-related macular degeneration, which affects 1.7 million Americans.

California’s stem cell agency funds research into potential therapies for three of the causes of blindness. All the research teams are seeking to use various forms of stem cells to rescue or replace cells in the eye damaged or threatened by the diseases. Several groups are working on ways to restore vision for people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Other projects are looking to preserve vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa, and to restore clarity to the surface of eyes impacted by corneal disease.

Macular degeneration

In AMD the layer of cells that support the photoreceptors is destroyed. Without this support system, the photoreceptors, the cells that actually allow us to sense light start to malfunction. CIRM-funded teams are looking at various methods of replacing this layer of support cells called RPE (retinal pigment epithelial) cells. Some are using embryonic stem cells as a starting point to generate new RPE cells. Others are using stem cells obtained by reprogramming adult cells to be like embryonic cells, which could potentially come from the patients’ themselves.

Retinitis pigmentosa

Retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited and progressive vision loss that leaves most patients legally blind by mid-life, directly destroys the photoreceptors. CIRM-funded researchers are seeking to use stem cells to rescue the receptors from further damage and potentially replace them with new ones.

limbal stem cell deficiency

The cornea, the outer surface of the eye, is constantly refreshed by stem cells that reside in neighboring tissue. But some people just don’t have enough of these stem cells, called Limbal stem cells, to make enough new cornea cells. CIRM-funded researcher are trying to correct this condition, limbal stem cell deficiency, by retrieving the few existing limbal stem cells, and using various techniques to expand them in the laboratory until there are enough cells to rebuild a healthy cornea.

For more detailed information:

http://www.cirm.ca.gov/our-progress/disease-information/macular-degeneration-fact-sheet

clinicaltrials.gov

Doctors predict Wet Macular Degeneration

Doctors in California predict chances of dry AMD degenerating to wet AMD.

About 10 percent of patients diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration will develop the form of the disease that causes permanent blindness. There’s no definitive way to predict who will progress to that stage or when that would happen. But a team of Stanford doctors think they may have found a way.

They created an algorithm that predicted whether a particular patient would be likely to develop the form of the disease that causes blindness within less than a year, three years or up to five years. For those with macular degeneration to go blind, the disease has to advance from what is known as the “dry” form to the “wet” form. The sooner a doctor can notice changes, the better chance there is to save a patient’s vision.

“If I can pick it up faster, the patient will start (treatment) sooner and have better vision in the end,” said Dr. Ted Leng, assistant professor of ophthalmology at Stanford Univ. and co-author of the study. “When patients do get a diagnosis of macular degeneration, we’ll be able to give them more information with some degree of certainty, and that will be comforting.”

For more info:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/Stanford-doctors-look-to-stave-off-vision-loss-5915389.php#/0

Google’s Brain-Inspired Software Describes What It Sees in Complex Images

Experimental Google software that can describe a complex scene could lead to better image search or apps to help the visually impaired.

Researchers at Google have created software that can use complete sentences to accurately describe scenes shown in photos—a significant advance in the field of computer vision. When shown a photo of a game of ultimate Frisbee, for example, the software responded with the description “A group of young people playing a game of frisbee.” The software can even count, giving answers such as “Two pizzas sitting on top of a stove top oven.”

Previously, most efforts to create software that understands images have focused on the easier task of identifying single objects. Multi-layered descriptions can lead to better understanding for vision-impaired readers and better searches by all.

For more info:  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532666/googles-brain-inspired-software-describes-what-it-sees-in-complex-images/

HIV drug may also treat macular degeneration

Reporting their findings in the journal Science, the international team, led by researchers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, say because of a previously undiscovered property, the drugs may also be effective against other inflammatory disorders.

In their new study on mice with a condition similar to dry AMD, Prof. Ambati and colleagues show that several FDA-approved NRTIs stopped retinal degeneration. But they were surprised to find it was a previously unknown property of the drugs that produced the results.

They found the NRTIs blocked a type of inflammasome called NLRP3. Inflammasomes are large complexes of proteins that play a key role in innate immunity. They detect and respond to certain molecular patterns of pathogens and other damaging agents.

For more info: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/285865.php

New Laser Therapy Helps Slow Macular Degeneration

A new, low impact low energy laser treatment for patients with early age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has produced positive results by reducing indicators of the disease.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne found unlike other laser treatments, this new faster laser did not result in damage to the retina, the sensitive light detecting tissue at the back of the eye.

This was the first report detailing how this new nanosecond laser treatment may improve eye health in those with AMD. In the early stages, the disease is characterized by the presence of small fatty deposits called drusen and thickening in a membrane at the back of the eye.

Smartphone Screens Correct for Your Vision Flaws

Scientific American article

Self-correcting screens on smartphones and iPads tailor themselves to a viewer’s vision—no glasses necessary.

In the U.S., more than 40 percent of 40-year-olds need eyeglasses for reading, and that figure jumps to nearly 70 percent for people aged 80 and older. “As we get older, refractive errors play more significant roles in our lives,” says Gordon Wetzstein, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University.

But glasses and contact lenses are not always ideal. If you are farsighted, for example, you do not need glasses to see traffic while driving, but you do need them to read your speedometer or GPS. The best solution in such cases, Wetzstein says, would be vision-correcting displays—screens that wear the glasses for you.Wetzstein and his colleagues at M.I.T. (where he was formerly based) and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed just such a screen. The vision-correcting display makes two modifications to a standard high-resolution smartphone or tablet screen. The first is a low-cost, pinhole-covered printed transparency that covers the screen. The second: algorithms coded into the smartphone or tablet that determine the viewer’s position relative to the screen and distort the image that is projected, according to his or her prescription. As the distorted image passes through the matrix of pinholes in the transparent screen cover, the hardware-software combination creates errors on the screen that cancel errors in the eye, thus delivering what appears to be a crisp image. The screen can correct for myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism and more complicated vision problems. The team presented the work at the SIGGRAPH conference in August in Vancouver.

Informal tests on a handful of users have shown that the technology works, Wetzstein says, but large-scale studies are needed to further refine it. In the process, the researchers also plan on developing a slider that can be used to manually adjust the focus of the screen. Wetzstein says that the technology could be a boon for people in developing countries who have easier access to mobile devices than prescription eyewear.

For more info:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-screens-correct-for-your-vision-flaws/

Teams finds novel approaches to treating age-related macular degeneration

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-team-approach-age-related-macular-degeneration.html

While oxygen is essential to our planet’s life force and the way we function and stay healthy, high concentrations referred to as oxidative stress may very well be the cause of more than 70 widely-spread diseases such as cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and eye diseases including macular degeneration.

 Scientists at Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, as well as the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, have found that sulindac, a known anti-inflammatory drug, can protect against oxidative damage due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the primary causes of vision loss in the elderly. Their findings were released today in an article titled “Pharmacological protection of retinal pigmented epithelial cells by sulindac involves PPAR-α” in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“What happens in age-related macular degeneration is that the retinal pigmented epithelial or RPE cells, which are essential to nourishing the retinal cells, are damaged by oxidative stress,” said Herbert Weissbach, Ph.D., director and distinguished research professor in the Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “Our studies show that sulindac can protect RPE cells in culture against oxidative damage, suggesting that it could be an inexpensive and relatively non-toxic therapeutic approach for treating age-related macular degeneration.”

Oxidative stress is mainly due to the imbalance between the free radicals produced within our bodies from the oxygen that we breathe in and the ability of the body to counteract or detoxify their harmful effects through neutralization by “antioxidants systems.” This imbalance is the underlying basis of oxidative stress. Oxygen free radicals can also be produced by environmental agents including air pollution, radiation, cigarette smoking, excess stress and increased exposure to sunlight.

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http://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/11/10/researchers-find-new-method-to-predict-contraction-of-age-related-macular-degeneration/

Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have created a new, smartermethod for predicting if and when patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) will contract the most damaging form of the disease.

The technique, which relies on computer analysis of retinal scans already commonly collected by ophthalmologists and optometrists, will enable doctors to accurately calculate whether any given patient is likely to progress to “wet” AMD — the later stage of the illness that causes blindness if not treated in time.

There is no feasible way to treat wet AMD preemptively. And until now, there was no way to tell with certainty whether dry AMD would become wet AMD. Patients just had to hope their next doctor’s visit would come at the right time to detect and head off any further deterioration before it was too late.

Thanks to the new computer algorithm, ophthalmologists can now predict whether a particular person’s AMD will progress within one, three or five years, enabling doctors to tell their patients much more accurately when their next visit should be.

Low Vision Speaker Event Nov. 14

The following post is from  Lauren Tappan, corrected version:

 

On November 14, 11 am, Binkley Baptist Church, Chapel Hill, NC, we will have a speaker event for people with vision limitations. This event would be most helpful for professionals and individuals with cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, etc. This is information that your doctors will not tell you. Lauren Tappan will talk about a low-vision resource blog, Lyn Shields will talk about UNC Hospital’s Kinttner Eye Center Low-Vision Clinic, Jack Mitchell will bring in assistive technology equipment for hands on demonstrations. For more information, contact Lauren Tappan at laurenandjay@mindspring.com

Jack Mitchell represents Indigo Logix. Their website is www.indigo-logix.com. He will be showing the Prodigi digital magnifier by Humanware. Indigo Logix is the Humanware dealer for NC, TN and GA.

You can  link to the Prodigi brochure by linking here: Prodigi Duo/Desktop/Tablet