Aimee Mullins on Adversity

Another great talk from Aimee Mullins

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Removing and replacing a prosthetic eye

Interesting video of a woman removing and replacing her prosthetic eye.
You Tube video description:

I show a video of myself removing and replacing my prosthetic eye. After giving birth to my daughter I realized I could not see, (I had a detatched retina, in March and may of 2006 I had surgeries to reattatch the retina which both failed. So I was just left blind in my eye for life.....but January of 2007 I was having horrific pain in my eye and doctors made the decision for me to have my eye removed. After the removal of my eye they found out that I had had cancer in it. I am cancer free, and no telling what actually caused the detatched retina in the first place but I'm fine now, Just wanted to show people what a prosthetic eye looks like :) Enjoy or NOT, but keep your rude and nasty comments to yourself!!! visit my Myspace for pictures of the surgeries... http://myspace.com/natemoni Also now up a full blog of my entire story :) "

Though the video itself is interesting, the comments are quite interesting as well, ranging from questions, ideas to freak people out, and those that found it difficult to look at, to people who find her brave, inspiring, beautiful and want to take her out. (see below the video)



"oh myyy gosh, sorry but that was scary wasnt expectingg itt."
"You should get some badass eyes like an 8 ball or a red LED or something."
"i always thought prosthetic eyes were round "
"Hm, that was surprising. The prosthetic eye looks quite real though. "
"thank u for posting:)
does it make a big difference to see with only one eye? i'm asking with all my respect. "
"Have you ever placed a prosthetic eye of a different color and freaked people out?"
"hey i only have one eye too i had a birth defect called phpv so they took it out and put in a prothstesis... its fun seeing peoples first reactions isnt it.. lol well nice to know somone else enjoys showing people that they can take their eye out...."
"Thanks for posting, I always wondered how that worked! I thought that prosthetic eyes were round, like a marble or something, but I guess not. It looks like putting that in and taking it out might scratch a bit; does it hurt?"
"I appreciate your willingness to share your experience - very educational; very helpful. Thank you. "
"very disgusting "
"what the hell "
The hole where your eye would be is not as gory as my imagination of what it was going to look like. Is there muscle tissue there? I was expecting a deep bony socket. You are very brave for what you've been through. Thank you for sharing. "
"Well, All this time I thought there would be a fairly large bloody hole where someones eye would be "
"wow...that is terrifying. No offence but it's not everyday you see someone remove their eye. Now don't get me wrong here! I'm NOT trying to be mean, I'll actually make it clear that you are very gifted in appearance and I would also like to point out that your prosthetic eye is very well made. At the start of the video I could not tell the difference."

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Real Cyborgs

Interesting article from Techradar.com "Meet the real-life human cyborgs" about individuals who are incorporating technology into their bodies. The most interesting part of the article deals with a film maker who had a camera embedded into his prosthetic eye. It goes on to talk about the research being done to use similar technology to assist individuals who are blind or visually impaired see. It also talks about an individual who has a usb drive built into their finger and use of other robotic prosthetics (see video below).

"Rob Spence is making a point, too. As the Toronto film maker explains: "I am a filmmaker who lost an eye so naturally I decided to modify my prosthetic eye into a video camera. I am not a lifecaster. I will use the eye-cam the same way I use a video camera now - or the same way any filmmaker would use a camera enabled cell phone."
Spence is working on a documentary "about how video and humanity intersect, especially with regards to surveillance."
Rob Spence's eye uses a camera sensor developed by OmniVision, which specialises in high quality cameras for medical devices such as endoscopes. The firm is also working closely with Stanford University's Daniel Palanker on the Retinal Prosthesis project, a hugely complex and ambitious attempt to use sub-retinal implants to restore blind people's sight.
As an OmniVision spokesperson told us, the firm "agreed to participate in the project to jump-start and/or fuel research to provide vision for the blind."
Palanker has published a number of scientific papers detailing the project, and they make fascinating reading. In Design of a high-resolution optoelectronic retinal prosthesis [PDF] he explains how "an image from a video camera is projected by a goggle-mounted collimated infrared LED-LCD display onto the retina, activating an array of powered photodiodes in the retinal implant." Essentially the digital eye enables the blind to see again."

Full Article




Image courtesy of gainesvegas

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