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Health & Fitness

Color Blindness

What is color blindness, who is affected and do they really have no color perception at all?

In the last week of seeing patients, we diagnosed three boys under the age of 5 with color blindness.  The parents had some great questions on how it affects their child, and there were a lot of misperceptions about what color blindness is! 

Color blind people DO see color but confuse certain colors in certain situations.  

Red and green are the most commonly confused colors among color blind people. 

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Color blindness is 10 times more common in males than females.  

Women are the gene carriers for color blindness—they get the gene from their fathers, so it typically skips a generation and affects the grandsons.

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There can be certain types of eye diseases, trauma, or even medications that can damage the color-seeing cones of the retina and cause color blindness.

This is a great website that simulates the different types of color vision blindness so you can see what they would see! Check it out right here: http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/2.html

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