(via cnn.com) On Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a device created by Second Sight Medical Products that can be used to treat a rare type of blindness called retinitis pigmentosa.

The device consists of a panel of electrodes that are surgically implanted in the eye, and a pair of glasses with an attached camera. The camera sends images to the electrodes, essentially bypassing the damaged retina and tapping into the optic nerve that signals the brain to "see" images.

In the future, it may also be approved to treat other conditions such as macular degeneration, which causes loss of vision in the elderly and affects about 2 million Americans. Some of the early patients testing the device said they could distinguish boundaries between objects and differentiate light from dark. Some could read large letters, while for others, being able to match sock colors and detect street curbs were more important for helping them to live more independently.

"Without the system, I wouldn't be able to see anything at all, and if you were in front of me and you moved left and right, I'm not going to realize any of this," Elias Konstantopolous, one of about 50 Americans and Europeans using the device in clinical trials, told the New York Times. "When you have nothing, this is something. It's a lot."