Now & Future November Series, Visual prosthesis and vision substitution systems / A case study in Al-Noor and Al-Amal Association for Women. session #3

The sessions in the Now & Future Series were open to the audience. A complete journey around Women in Science and Engineering has been delivered.

By: Prof. Walid Al-Atabany According to the WHO, approximately 40 million people have blindness worldwide. The effect of dependency on their families, society, and economy is huge. Modern ophthalmic drugs can slow the progression of conditions such as wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy but are very expensive. Retinal prosthetics, therefore, hold the potential to restore lost vision. It can primarily work with conditions such as Retinitis Pigmentosa, where there is a remaining viable communication link between the retina and visual cortex.

In addition, assistive devices, based on sensory substitution, for visually impaired subjects represent another hope as a short-term solution. This talk is aimed at a broad audience. I will discuss the types of visual diseases appropriate for different prosthetic vision forms. Also, I will explain different types of sensory substitution systems for the visually impaired and my efforts to design a forced feedback tablet (Haptic tablet) for blind subjects.