Colour vision deficiency (colour blindness)
Overview
Colour vision deficiency (colour blindness) is where you see colours differently to most people, and have difficulty telling colours apart. There's no treatment for colour vision deficiency that runs in families, but people usually adapt to living with it.
Symptoms
The main symptom of colour vision deficiency is finding it hard to tell the difference between colours. You can be born with colour vision deficiency, or it can start at any age. If your child has colour vision deficiency you may not notice any symptoms, but you may notice your child: uses the wrong colours when drawing or painting, for example, drawing purple leaves on treeshas difficulty with tasks involving sorting colourslacks interest in colouring taskssmells food before eating it
Causes
It's not known exactly what causes colour vision deficiency, but it's thought to be a problem with the signals from your eyes to your brain. It can be passed on in families and some people are born with it. Colour vision deficiency can also sometimes be caused by: eye conditions, such as glaucomaother conditions such as diabetes, liver disease and multiple sclerosisan eye or head injurya stroketaking certain medicines
Treatment
There is currently no treatment for colour vision deficiency that runs in families. Most people adapt to seeing colours differently. If your colour vision has been affected by an underlying medical condition or by medicines, getting treatment for the condition or changing medicines may help.