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Light-sensitive tissue, the retina, lines the back of the eye and consists of two types of light distinguishing cells: rods and cones. While rods detect or see light and dark, cones are responsible for detecting color and sending the information to the brain for processing. Your eye has three types of cones; one for perceiving red, another for blue, and third for green. In a healthy eye, the cones work together to facilitate your ability to see a broad range of colors. When one or more types of cone function abnormally, color deficiency occurs.
Color blindness, however, can develop as the result of disease, medical conditions, trauma, or as a side effect of medication. Conditions that may lead to color blindness include macular degeneration, glaucoma, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and alcoholism. Color blindness develops later in life as the result of a condition is known as acquired color deficiency.
An eye care professional diagnoses color blindness with a simple test. The patient is shown diagrams comprised of differently colored dots. Colorblind individuals will not be able to distinguish shapes or numbers hidden among the dots in a different color.