What affects 20 million people, robs the global economy of billions of dollars and can be fixed with a five-minute procedure?
The answer is cataract blindness. The disease, which begins with clouding of the eyes and can lead to loss of vision without treatment, will probably afflict 12 million more people by 2020, as a shortage of skilled doctors limits access to care in developing nations, according to the Rand Corporation.
Jim Ueltschi wants to change all that. Through HelpMeSee, a non-profit organization committed to fighting cataract blindness, he wants to train 30,000 people for a procedure to remove the impairment using a virtual-reality simulator that replicates the human eye and feel of live surgery.
Read the full article here: Can Virtual Reality Be the Next Thing in Curing Blindness?
