The Future of Contact Lenses – Part 1
After the recent post regarding the possibility of television screens being designed and implemented into contact lenses, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what the future holds for contact lenses on a wider scale.
When you consider the forward steps that the contact lens world has taken in the past 100 years (or even the past 50 years), in theory, the next couple of decades should bring some remarkable achievements with contact lenses.
A lot of research has already been carried, some behind closed doors (as well as barred windows in high security buildings) and some more freely available. Some of the ideas are no where near possible, due to the limitations we currently have in the technological department, whilst others are extremely close to being finished and finalised, ready to be brought on to the contact lens market.
For example, a group of students at the University of Florida have developed a contact lens that administers medicine at regular, pre-decided intervals. On first glance, these contact lenses appear to be no different than regular contact lenses. However, when looking more closely, the contact lenses are created with many nanoparticles which are full of the appropriate medicine. Furthermore, as the contact lenses are created with the medicine as part of the actual contact lens, no deterioration in vision is caused. There has been huge praise for this contact lens development, as compared to eye-drops where the majority of the medicine enters the patients bloodstream rather than the eye, these contact lenses should release the medicine solely into the eye, ensuring a quicker and more effective recovery.