Usher syndrome is the most prevalent condition that affects both vision and hearing. Being a syndrome, it means that this condition is a disorder or disease that has a range of features or symptoms.
The main symptoms of this condition are hearing loss and Retinitis Pigmentosa, which is an eye disorder. Retinitis Pigmentosa can cause you night-blindness. Your peripheral vision is lost too. All of these happen because of the progressive degeneration of your retina.
As Retinitis Pigmentosa progresses, your field of vision would narrow, developing into another condition called "tunnel vision". With severe tunnel vision, you are only able to see the central vision. That's why severe balance problems are also an issue for a lot of patients with Usher syndrome.
This syndrome is an inherited condition. This means that it is inherited from parents to their kids through their genes. Genes are found in roughly every cell of your body. Basically, genes contain blueprints or instructions that tell your cells what to do.
Everyone inherits two copies of one from each parent. Sometimes your genes can be mutated, or altered. When mutation occurs, this can cause your cells to malfunction.
When you inherit Usher syndrome, it is an autosomal recessive trait. Since it is autosomal, this means either male or female can acquire the condition and is able to pass it to their child. However, since it is also recessive, this means that in able for a child to acquire Usher syndrome, he should receive both mutated genes from both parents.
So basically, if the mom has a normal gene, and the dad has a mutated gene, their child would still have normal hearing and vision. Sadly, if each parent carries a mutated gene, they would have a twenty five percent chance of having a baby with Usher syndrome per childbirth.
