The special glasses that can restore vision where normal ones fail, and why almost no one (including eye doctors) has heard of them

After the stroke, everything was blurry. When he watched an American football game, his wife, Polly, had to tell him the score and the time left, because he couldn’t see the words on the TV screen. He couldn’t safely do the woodworking projects he used to love. 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 customers, 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 some of the 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.

How eye tests protect your brain: poor vision tied to higher dementia risk

Bramer tried them and 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 says. “And tears just came to my eyes, because he hadn’t seen it for several months.”

Bioptic telescopic glasses can help patients resume reading, recognising faces across a room, watching TV, playing cards, in some cases even driving, Palmer says. But for some reason, few have heard of them.

“They tend not to be widely used, unfortunately,” says ophthalmologist Scott Peterson, who refers patients to Palmer. “Some people don’t know that practitioners like Dr Palmer exist, or they have a hard time finding them.”

Palmer says eye doctors in the US “aren’t doing a great job” of referring patients who might benefit from them. He’s not sure why.

“Almost every patient that we talk to has the same questions: ‘Why didn’t my doctor tell me?’ ‘Why haven’t I heard of this before?’” he says. “I would say that if you asked 100 doctors you’d get 100 different types of answers as to why they do or don’t tell people.”

Telescopic glasses are “basically binoculars” that affix to glasses and magnify images so objects look bigger, closer and clearer, says Palmer, who has specialised in this area since 2008. They resemble jewellers’ loupes.

“It’s like having a miniaturised telescope or binoculars stuck right into a pair of glasses,” Palmer says. “They’re two individual eyepieces that you’re looking through.” Their position can be adjusted as needed.

Bioptic telescopes are helpful for people with eye conditions – including macular degeneration, ocular albinism, Stargardt disease, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and rod cone dystrophy – that reduce vision to levels too low to benefit from regular glasses and contacts.

The devices won’t help everybody with eye problems, Peterson says, “but in many cases people can regain some level of independence, reading, the ability to perform tasks around the home,” he adds.

Another reason they’re not more widely used is that they’re expensive and generally not covered by insurance, Palmer says. Then again, hearing aids – an analogous product in many ways – can be expensive and often aren’t covered, either, but most people know about them.

The vocational rehabilitation programme at Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind offers bioptic telescopes among a number of devices it provides to help people with low vision – along with closed-circuit TVs, magnification apps and software, specialised eyeglasses, and more – says director Natasha Jerde.

New eyesight tests to spot blindness-causing disease to be used in Hong Kong

The programme occasionally provides the devices for free, among other vision products, Jerde says. But because it’s a work programme, the items must be needed as part of a plan to get or keep a job or advance in a career.

“We have not purchased many of these devices,” she says. “But there have been a few unique … situations where it is something a person needed, so we were able to buy it for them.”

The Bramers paid US$5,000 for Dick’s – US$2,500 apiece, one for distance and one for close-up.

For him, the cost was worth it. He’s back to doing most of the things he could always do – seeing birds, football scores and his wife’s face. He doesn’t drive, because although he can see the road he sometimes misses objects that appear suddenly. So walking (or letting Polly drive) is safer.

“I can still walk decent, I’ve just got to kind of know where I’m at,” he says. “If I’m walking downtown, for instance, I just have to be aware of curbs and uneven surfaces.”