Total blindness refers to the condition whereby one cannot see anything with either eye. Unlike other cases of blindness, someone who is totally blind cannot even notice visual light, regardless of brightness ( Erickson and Hatton, 2007 ). This is why total blindness is clinically recorded as “no light perception,” commonly abbreviated as NLP.
People with NLP tend to be among the most challenged in almost all aspects of life. Since most learning in life involves the visual sense, it is difficult for someone to be at the same level as their peers. Particularly for individuals who are born with NLP or those that acquire the disability in very early stage of their lives, there is a considerably high risk of suppressed mental development since they cannot depend on their eyesight to provide information. People with total blindness also face numerous social challenges since they have difficulty in movement and have to be given a hand most of the time. Also, being totally blind means that one would listen to others converse about some things that they see without being able to contribute effectively to such discussions. The most significant impact of blindness on the society is the cost of setting special institutions for the blind ( Pascolini and Mariotti, 2012 ). In the United States, for instance, millions of dollars are being spent annually to cater for the blind from infants to senior citizens.
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While discussing total blindness, it is important to note that this disability has evolved over the past decades to its current state. For instance, smallpox was the leading cause of blindness two centuries ago. While smallpox was thoroughly researched and the disease controlled, total blindness still affects more than 40 million people in the world ( Pascolini and Mariotti, 2012 ). Today, refractive error, glaucoma, and cataract cumulatively contribute to more than three-quarter of total blindness cases in the world. The current research on this problem has yielded encouraging results, especially with the discovery of genetic influence on the incidence of glaucoma. In the future, total blindness is likely to be caused by diabetes and age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) ( Erickson and Hatton, 2007 ). Diabetic incidences are increasing every year for the past two decades while ARMD increases because of the aging global population.
Suffering from total blindness, in the case of a health care profession, is likely to translate to the end of one’s career. It is very difficult to provide care for patients if one loses their sight. Perhaps the most probable career would be teaching albeit with a lot of difficulties.
References
Erickson, K. A., & Hatton, D. (2007). Literacy and visual impairment. In Seminars in speech and language (Vol. 28, No. 01, pp. 058-068). Copyright© 2007 by Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc., 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.
Pascolini, D., & Mariotti, S. P. (2012). Global estimates of visual impairment: 2010. British Journal of Ophthalmology , 96 (5), 614-618.
