Devices restore sight to those who don’t benefit from glasses
Dick Bramer likes to watch birds flock outside the window of his home in Scandia, Minnesota. But for two years he couldn’t see them well enough to identify the species.
“I’ve got bird feeders and stuff out there, so that’s kind of my thing,” said Bramer, 76. “There are all kinds of birds coming in.”
In July 2021, Bramer suffered what doctors diagnosed as an ocular stroke (they said a small particle of plaque must have blocked blood flow to the optic nerve) in one eye. He already had lost vision in his other eye decades earlier.
After the stroke, everything was blurry. When he watched a football game, his wife, Polly, had to tell him the score and the time left, because he couldn’t see the writing on the TV screen. When they went to see their grandchildren play football, soccer or baseball, he couldn’t follow the games because he couldn’t see the ball.
The Bramers looked everywhere for something that might help. They went to stores catering to low-vision consumers, but found that most of the products were aids to help people function better without their vision, not improve its clarity. Because they spend winters in Florida, they figured other retirees must have heard of a solution. Nope.
Then a friend told them about Low Vision Restoration in Blaine, Minnesota. Optometrist Chris Palmer, who founded the clinic, prescribes devices that can help improve people’s vision when other glasses can’t. Palmer fitted Bramer with the devices, which are like miniature binoculars or telescopes affixed to regular glasses.
Bramer suddenly saw his wife clearly for the first time since the stroke.
“He said, ‘I can see her! I can see her face! She’s wearing a necklace!’ ” Polly recalled. “And tears just came to my eyes, because he hadn’t seen it for several months.”
The devices, called bioptic telescopic glasses, can help patients read, recognize faces across a room, watch TV, play cards, in some cases even driving, Palmer said. But few people have heard of them.