Overview of Color Blindness

Description:
Color blindness, also known as color vision deficiency, is defined as the inability to see color or see color differences. The name color blindness can be deceiving because there is no actual blindness, only inability to see certain colors or any color at all. Color vision deficiency is a more fitting name for this disorder because it better defines the disorder.
Color vision deficiency occurs when there is a problem with the pigments found in certain nerve cells of the eye called cones. Pigments are color-sensing granules found in cones. Cones themselves are found in the retina which lines the back of the eye and is light sensitive. There are several different forms of color vision deficiency caused by missing pigments inside the retina. The most common type of color blindness is a missing pigment that causes a person trouble seeing the difference between red and green. If a different pigment is missing, that person might have trouble seeing blue and yellow colors. It’s also possible to be missing more than one pigment causing trouble seeing or telling the difference between several different colors (Board).
In very rare cases a person is diagnosed with the most rare form of color blindness known as achromatopsia. A person with this rare form of color vision deficiency cannot see any color at all which means that they see everything in shades of grey. Achromatopsia is typically linked with other vision malfunctions such as severe light sensitivity, nystagmus (small jerky eye movements), lazy eye, and extremely poor vision (Board).
There are three different types of color blindness; monochromacy, dichromacy, and anomalous trichromacy. Monochromacy is complete color blindness meaning that the person cannot see any co...

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References
Board, A. E. (2011, January 06). Retrieved March 18, 2014, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001997/
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Color Blindness: Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Treatment. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2014, from http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/tc/color-blindness-topic-overview
Inherited Colour Vision Deficiency. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2014, from http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/inherited-colour-vision-deficiency/
Types of Color Blindness | Colblindor. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2014, from http://www.color-blindness.com/2010/03/09/types-of-color-blindness/
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