What is Tritanopia?
Tritanopia is color blindness related to the colors blue and yellow. It is a rare form to witness. It is vital to state that Tritanopia does not make it hard to differentiate between blue and yellow. It makes it difficult to segregate colors containing blue and yellow.
People having Tritanopia have difficulty distinguishing green–blue, yellow–pink, and purple–red. The colors may seem less bright in comparison too. However, it does not affect the sharpness or clarity of your eye-sight.
What is Color Blindness?
Color Blindness is a form that makes it difficult to distinguish between specific colors owing to the absence of light-sensitive pigments in the cones. It is also referred to as Color Vision Deficiency.
Humans possess three types of light-sensing cones in their eyes. These cones are sensitive to light, having different wavelengths. These wavelengths can be Red, Green, or Blue.
If the cones miss any specific light pigments owing to any wavelength, it becomes difficult to see colors on those pigments. The most common form of color blindness is associated with the colors red and green.
On some rare occasions, there have been cases of complete color blindness where people see the world as gray scaled.
What causes blue-yellow color blindness Tritanopia?
As far as Tritanopia is concerned, the cones of the human eye are deprived of the short wavelength. It is referred to as S-Cones. In the absence of S-Cones in the human eye, it becomes hard to spot colors that possess blue or yellow color elements in them.
There are two prominent types of Tritanopia linked with blue-yellow color blindness, which are discussed as follows.
The first form of Tritanopia makes it hard to segregate the colors that contain blue or yellow elements. Some examples of them are green and blue or purple and red. It is due to the absence of S-Cones.
The second form of Tritanopia makes it hard to segregate colors such as green and blue, and red and yellow. This is due to defective S-Cones, caused due to a random gene mutation.
How can Tritanopia be diagnosed?
Diagnosis refers to the procedure of examing and identifying the symptoms to reach a definite conclusion. An individual suffering from Tritanopia may be diagnosed with the help of a Color Blind Test.
An individual is asked to focus and look at a series of dots located at some distance. A pattern forming a number will appear on the chart. This number cannot be seen by a person suffering from Tritanopia.
Therefore, the conclusion can be reached in a short time whether a person is suffering from Tritanopia or not. In some tests, the dots are arranged in a way that a person suffering from Tritanopia will see a different number compared to the normal person.
The Farnsworth Munsell Hue Test is another prominent test that is widely used to test whether a person is positive for Tritanopia or not. In this test, an individual is asked to arrange disks of colored nature that undergo continuous sequence changes.
People with Tritanopia would not be able to arrange the disks as they would have problems distinguishing the colors.
These tests prove helpful in identifying color blindness.
How common is Tritanopia?
Tritanopia or Blue-yellow color blindness affects men and women equally. However, it is surprising to state that Tritanopia is very rarely observed in individuals.
According to the data of a recent survey, Tritanopia is only found in 1 out of 10000 individuals.
The form of color blindness is observed in Caucasian Males. The lowest or the least common section is the African-Americans. It was also found that only 0.4% of the girls suffer from color blindness. Therefore, we can reach the conclusion that Tritanopia is rare to witness among individuals.
What are good strategies for living with Tritanopia?
Although it is seen that Tritanopia has made some people very annoyed and frustrated. It does not affect living to a large extent.
Below are some techniques you can implement in your daily life routine to make it a bit easier to segregate the colors.
You can sort out clothes having colored patterns in an organized way. It will help you distinguish the clothes which will help in saving time. This would also allow you to match the outfits you are planning to wear easily. For implying this, you can take the help of any family member or your friends.
You can try to memorize the order of colors in certain elements, which will eliminate the need to focus on colors. For instance, you can remember the sequence of traffic lights from top to bottom. Traffic light signals red yellow, then green in the stated.
It is a symptom of Tritanopia that colors start to look less bright in comparison to normal vision. To counter this, you can try to use brighter lighting in the house, which will make it easier to distinguish colors. It is vital to state that the darker the room, the more problems you will encounter to differentiate between the colors in the environment.
What are the treatments available for Tritanopia?
There are several things you can do to cure or support your Tritanopia. You can use specially designed tinted glasses that help individuals with Tritanopia distinguish between the colors more effectively and efficiently.
Colorblind glasses are also available in the markets, which will help deal with problems arising out of specific wavelengths of colors. This would allow you to see a wide range of colors. You can also use customized lenses to suit your needs.
It is also crucial to state that there is no cure for Tritanopia or Color Blindness. It does not mean that this has to be treated like a deadly disease.
We are positive that proper treatment will be devised later in the future, which will help remove the color barrier. This would allow the individuals to segregate between different colors of the world, improving their overall living.
Tritanopia does not impede or hinder your daily life. It is also not something, which impairs your vision. Therefore with a few techniques and an organized approach you can move forward in your life like any other normal vision person.
Conclusion
Tritanopia should not be considered a form of the disease. It will not affect your daily life if you can devise methods that help you distinguish between the colors. Furthermore, you could also use specially made lenses or glasses to improve your color-distinguishing abilities.
If you are unsure regarding color blindness, you can take any of the tests we suggested to identify whether you are color blind or not. Color blindness is rare to witness, and only a fraction of the population gets affected by it.