Israeli development will restore eyesight
Pictured: the lens telescope
A tiny telescope intended for implantation in the eye - an invention of an Israeli doctor, Dr. Yitzhak Lifshitz - was developed by the company VisionCare (VisionCare), whose R&D center is in Israel and which also began operating in Silicon Valley in California.
The intraocular telescope - "Galilean telescope" (meaning: based on lenses) - is intended to restore sight to elderly people who have gone blind from a degenerative eye disease.
The diseases that cause the severe condition are defined as "macular degeneration". About 35 million people in the Western world suffer from them (and probably many millions more, in other countries that do not maintain an orderly registry on this subject). Every year more than half a million more people join the hospital.
The tiny telescope that is implanted in a pocket in the eye (in a surgical procedure similar to lens implantation), is a vision unit consisting of a large number of tiny, micro lenses. They magnify the objects and enable the reception of light, in the center of the implanted person's field of vision and its translation into an image on the retina. No additional visual aids are needed. The brain translates the resulting image - and the implanted person thus regains the ability to see.
Dr. Lifshitz said that the use of the device has been approved in the European Union countries and is awaiting approval from the American FDA as well (after going through the first testing phase in the USA).
