Report: Device Could Help With People Facing Blindness

Researchers in Italy and California have created a device to help treat people with debilitating retinal diseases, NBC News reports.

The devices — artificial retinas that can be implanted entirely inside the eye — were crafted by researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa and the University of California, San Diego. The devices are still in the experimental stage and are only developmental prototypes as researchers have years of work to do before getting them ready for commercial use.

But there's great potential to help people who suffer from age-related macular degeneration, which causes damage to the macula, a small spot near the center of the retina and the part of the eye needed for sharp, central vision.

"This is definitely a game changer," Dr. Kapil Bharti, an investigator at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland who was not involved with the research, told NBC News. "Previous versions of these work in a very, very low-resolution range. Patients were practically still blind and incapacitated as far as everyday tasks were concerned. These promise that patients could become more independent."

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