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VR Treatment for Lazy Eye

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the eye-am-the-greatest dept.

1point618 writes "According to an article at the BBC, scientist have found a new way to correct amblyopia, or lazy eye, using a virtual reality system. The system works by giving some stimuli to the good eye, but more important stimuli to the bad eye, making it work harder to get stronger while keeping both eyes in use so as not to produce double vision. Supposedly, the system will do in 1 hour what used to take 400 hours, but I'd stay skeptical of such a claim until there is a peer-reviewed paper out."

169 comments

  1. 0o by ExE122 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One thing this article doesn't mention is the age of the patients. I know the amblyopia can be treated more easily when caught at an early age, when the eye is still maturing. So I think this would be an important factor to note in their statistics. A friend of mine had lazy eye when he was younger and was successfully treated with a week of wearing an eye patch and some atropine drops. But I'm thinking it would take a little more than that to help out Thom Yorke and Dr. Evil.

    I'm also curious as to what type of amblyopia this treats. Is the treatment equally effective for lazy eye caused by nearsight, farsight, astygmatism, and strabismus? If so, couldn't this also become a treatment for any of those on their own? I'm slightly nearsighted, and my optomotrist explained it to me as my eyes being too lazy to focus correctly. I wonder if I could just give them a little VR workout every now and then to beef them up...

    Is there an eye doctor in the house?

    --
    "Man Bites Dog
    Then Bites Self"

    --
    Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
    1. Re:0o by BewireNomali · · Score: 1

      I can finally get rid of this eyepatch!

      --
      un burrito me trampeó.
    2. Re:0o by cornface · · Score: 2, Informative

      and my optomotrist explained it to me as my eyes being too lazy to focus correctly.

      Start here.

    3. Re:0o by Dairyland.Net · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One of my sons has amblyopia. I recall that at age 2 there is something like a 98% chance of correcting it, and by age 9 there is a 2% chance. He tried the patch for quite a while with little improvement. A different doctor then had him get rid of the patch and had him use some drops in the 'good' eye instead. These drops would numb the focusing of the 'good' eye and allow the 'bad' eye to strengthen more by doing more work. It worked great!! He is now 12, long done with the treatment, and although his eyes are not perfect, they are very much improved. I only wish we had gone with the drops much earlier.

    4. Re:0o by EggyToast · · Score: 3, Interesting
      It seems like the treatment simply addresses strength problems between the eyes. If poor vision caused the eyes to have different strength, then I don't see why not. Obviously you would have to wear contacts or have the vision in each eye corrected before using this method.

      But definitely it would be easier to be done at an early age, as after puberty there's really no way to easily create neural pathways to the brain. It's the same reason why it's easy for kids to learn languages, yet more difficult for adults. I'm sure it could assist amblyopia in adults, but it would probably be impossible to cure it.

      But if your eyes individually are having problems, then I don't think this treatment would address that. It seems to focus on differences between the eyes, versus any inherent weakness in a single eye individually.

    5. Re:0o by outsider007 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      they way my eye doctor explained it to me, the pathways between your eye and brain are softwired until you're 7 or 8, and after that there's no way to correct it.

      --
      If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
    6. Re:0o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gotta love the anonymo-trolls!

      If you think that's lame, I don't think you belong on /.

      Far worse is someone who spends the time to write some jealous response packed with a bunch of *lame* 3rd grade insults. That jism comment was a real knee-slapper.

      Again, something that doesn't belong in an intelligent forum such as /.

    7. Re:0o by Jim_Maryland · · Score: 1

      I believe the patching age has changed to a later age (sorry, don't recall the exact age but think it was closer to 18). My son went through a period of patching from approximately age 7 to age 9 and the doctor declared that his eyes were even. A later visit around age 11 showed that it had deteriorated between my son's yearly visits as well as screening at the school and the pediatricians office. Based on that, I'm pretty convinced that he can still have it corrected and we're back to patching again. I am curious about the drops and will check with my provider to see if that is an option for my son. By the way, my son is 12 now.

      Jim

    8. Re:0o by DurendalMac · · Score: 1

      Very little can be done for lazy eye past the age of eight or so. By then, your brain is already set on how it's going to use that eye. I'd love to see a cure for my right eye's ambliopa, but I don't think it's gonna happen.

    9. Re:0o by Bohiti · · Score: 1

      Keep it around for September 19th!

    10. Re:0o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      As an Optometrist, i am very sceptical... the Tool could be nice to use in the treatment but you don't make the brain work that fast. the result may be short lived. All the previous points are accurate. Age has a LARGE factor as well as the underlying cause.

    11. Re:0o by slavemowgli · · Score: 1

      Is there an eye doctor in the house?

      No, but ever since I watched the Simpsons, I know that a lazy eye can be cured by wearing thick-rimmed glasses for two weeks. Oh, and while you're at it, also rub some medicated salve into your scalp to cure your dry skin and wear clunky shoes to fix your fallen arches.

      --
      quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
    12. Re:0o by kb9vgr · · Score: 1

      i had surgery done to correct mine when i was 12 im 20 now from what i understood at the time was they took the muscle and folded it then stitched it to bring my eye to center man just thinking about that makes me head hurt all over again i had a migrain for a week after that and when ever i tryed to move my eye for 2 weeks

    13. Re:0o by firemangreg · · Score: 1

      I'm not a doctor, but my understanding is that nearsightedness and farsightedness are caused by problems with the how your eye's lens changes its shape. This may not entirely be the case seeing as this was taught in a psychology class while explaining how the human eye's rods and cones work, but who knows, it may be right.

    14. Re:0o by Jim_Maryland · · Score: 1

      I wish it was that simple for my son. Dealing with patching for a pre-teen is not exactly easy on my wife and I as he does't want to wear a patch. My son's amblyopia is not muscular but rather that his brain just wired itself to use one eye over the other. In his case, surgery is not an option, I almost wish it was the case. We already enforce that he watch TV, play video games, and use the computer while patching. I'd love to convert the hundreds of hours patching into hours. I can't let my son exceed my game play time and be able to beat me at most games.

    15. Re:0o by fshalor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That eye-patch treatment started a downward spiral in both eyes which has me with:
      1. a bad perscription in both eyes
      2. loss of color definition in my left (good) eye
      3. inability to wear contacts for extended periods
      4. occasional eye twitches in lazy eye when overused
      5. inability to use right eye in viewfinders, sights, etc. (have to shoot rifles left handed)

      As soon as the treatment was over, I went from 20/20 to loosing my distance vision. I never got back the color response in my left (good) eye. now.

      The only thing that helped a lot resently was RTCW. ... hehe. I played quite seriously for about a year. Did wonders!

      --
      -=fshalor ::this post not spellchecked. move along::
    16. Re:0o by smellsofbikes · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not an eye doctor but my girlfriend is. I'll try and sum up what I've learned. Farsightedness and nearsightedness are both problems with the lens or cornea's radius of curvature (not enough or too much); astigmatism is a problem with the lens or cornea having two different radii of curvature -- in other words, it's somewhere between hemispherical and cylindrical, so you have a major axis and a minor axis of curvature. Imagine an elliptic lens, basically. Amblyopia is, to the best of my knowledge, a problem with the muscles that control the eye or with the brain's ability to work with the details it's getting, so it has nothing to do with the lens and cornea, which determine near/far/astigmatism. If the brain cannot, for whatever reason, make images from the two eyes fuse into one, it'll start to ignore one eye and that eye will start tracking poorly. Likewise, if the muscles that control that eye are asymmetric, it will track poorly and the brain will begin to ignore it, so it'll wander more. There are three pairs of muscles that move each eye, sort of hexagonally spaced, and they can be of different strength. That can be corrected surgically or (as in article) optically, with differing rates of success, and for some people, specially cut glasses will provide excellent tracking but if the person is very tired or removes the glasses, the eyes will stop tracking together fairly quickly. Pardon me, ophthalmic doctors out there, if I'm grossly wrong.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    17. Re:0o by firemangreg · · Score: 1

      If anyone was curious, those drops are most likely atropine.

    18. Re:0o by mckyj57 · · Score: 1

      A friend of mine had lazy eye when he was younger and was successfully treated with a week of wearing an eye patch and some atropine drops.

      Huh? I think you are confused. That is what you usually do after the operation to shorten the muscle which actually does help amblyopia.

      I had the operation when I was nine years old, and it was fairly serious. My daughter had the operations when she was 2, and that was outpatient. Obviously surgical techniques have improved as well, but the fact is that it is not amblyopia if it is cured by a week of an eye patch.

    19. Re:0o by jd0g85 · · Score: 1
      That eye-patch treatment started a downward spiral in both eyes which has me with:
      1. a bad perscription in both eyes
      2. loss of color definition in my left (good) eye
      3. inability to wear contacts for extended periods

      What evidence, if any, does the parent have that the eye-patch treatment caused this? My two favorites (continued):

      4. occasional eye twitches in lazy eye when overused

      A muscle becomes fatigued when overused? Go figure!

      5. inability to use right eye in viewfinders, sights, etc. (have to shoot rifles left handed)

      When shooting, which hand to hold the rifle with is more often based on "eye dominance" rather than "handedness". Sure, it is convienient when the two coincide, but that's not always the case. (I am fortunately both right eye and right hand dominate.)

      Does anyone care to link to some medical evidence against the patch-treatment?

      --
      There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.-Asimov
    20. Re:0o by hackstraw · · Score: 2

      A different doctor then had him get rid of the patch and had him use some drops in the 'good' eye instead. These drops would numb the focusing of the 'good' eye and allow the 'bad' eye to strengthen more by doing more work. It worked great!!

      Did you get a refund from the first doctor?

      It worries me sometimes that with the cost of health care, there is little assurance that there is any quality to it. I've had to go to multiple doctors in the past or have paid doctors to fix something and they either didn't or made the situation worse.

      The grease covered auto mechanics don't have these issues. I've never had a car not get repaired by the first person I took it to. Up to replacing motors, and for a nominal fee that did not involve a 3rd party that I had to pay monthly (health insurance).

      I guess people are so relieved when they get help or eventually die before they get good healthcare that they don't complain about the many bad doctors out there.

    21. Re:0o by docneuro · · Score: 2, Informative

      Is there an eye doctor in the house?
      ---
      I'm a neurologist, not an ophthalmologist, but perhaps I can help...

      Amblyopia is a defect in the processing of visual spatial information that affects the visual pathways in the brain NOT the eye. It is developmental in that there is some problem in an eye from an early age that prevents proper binocular vision, for example a congenital cataract, or a problem aligning the two eyes, i.e,. weak muscles or strabismus.

      What is thought to happen is that the brain's visual pathways, deprived of binocular input, do not form properly. Children, up to about the age of 9 are at risk for this, because this is when the brain areas are forming. You cannot develop amblyopia after this (approx) age. So if something happened to one normal adult eye even for a long time in a person without amblyopia, then the eye was fixed, there would again be normal binocular vision.

      Conversely, if a kid develops amblyopia, then by the time they are an adult it is too late to fix it. Perhaps one can train the eyes to fuse better, but the problem in the brain's visual pathways will not improve.

      The treatment of amblyopia is to try to get the visual system to combine information from both eyes, and particularly to work the "lazy" eye. The earlier this can be started, the better.
      I agree that until the technique is published in a peer reviewed journal it should be suspect (I don't know if it is).
      The treatment, in principle, should be useful no matter what the cause, BUT the problem causing the bad eye must be fixed first. Since the technique treats the brain and not the eye, it would not be at all useful for treating nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, etc. Those problems are treated glasses, etc. Strabismus or weak eye muscles, is one cause of amblyopia.
      ----
      I wonder if I could just give them a little VR workout every now and then to beef them up...
      ---

      Well, do you really want muscular bulgy eyes?
      http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/animation/assets/and _one_more.jpg/

    22. Re:0o by spune · · Score: 1

      I have no medical evidence, jd0g85, I, too, was treated for lazy eye with patches and I have ended up with the same effects over which fshalor complains.
      I can see out of my left eye, but only when the right eye is closed. My left (bad) eye also suffers color offset, I can't wear contacts for more than a few hours, I have bad prescriptions now in both eyes, etc etc.

      While I can prove nothing, I've doubled the sample size :)

    23. Re:0o by docneuro · · Score: 1

      whoopsie.. that link should be

      http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/animation/assets/and _one_more.jpg

    24. Re:0o by was698002 · · Score: 1

      Amblyopia is blindness from any cause. What we are talking about here is amblyopia ex anopsia, that is blindness without obvious ocular cause - a well-formed eye that doesn't see well. Likely causes are malalignment or significant refractive difference between the eyes. It turns out that vision is learned. If you sew a kittens eye closed and then open it later it will not see. Same thing happens with kids with congenital ptosis. Now it also turns out that alignment of the eyes is also learned to a certain extent. Infants and yoga practitioners can move them independently - they are not yoked together like the front wheels of a car. There is a certain amount of "chicken and egg" problem here because if the eyes aren't aligned one will tend to be suppressed because if it isn't double vision will result. OTH if one eye doesn't see it will tend to drift because it lacks the stimulus of doubleness which keeps eyes aligned in the first place. Now it gets more complicated. Frequently only the central part of the vision of the deviating eye is suppressed and the peripheral part is fused with the vision of the other eye. This situation is more stable in terms of alignment than cases in which the deviating eye is totally suppressed. Those are the ones that get operated every 5-10 years for increased deviation. The whole system is pretty malleable in terms of training prior to age 6, iffy from 6-12 and virtually impossible to influence after age 12. No one know why, but it has to do with the same thing that lets you learn a foreign language without an accent if you are young enough. After a certain age that is nearly impossible. To evaluate this report you have to know the age of the patients and whether or not there was organic disease, prior treatment including glasses and surgery and a lot of other variables. Then there needs to be a matched group with another form of therapy.

    25. Re:0o by DrScott · · Score: 1

      It is most likely that the optometrist was trying to oversimplify amblyopia for the sake of the patient, and used an unfortunate description that is not accurate. Although amblyopes do tend to have less accurate accommodative systems, this is a secondary (or tertiary) effect of their amblyopia. Amblyopia is a visual cortical disorder characterized by reduced visual acuity, oculomotor anomalies, reduced or absent stereopsis, and (depending upon the etiology the amblyopia) spatil undersampling and aliasing that distorts spatial vision.

      Please don't put all optometrists into the same basket, and characterize them all as quacks! Some of the world's leading _scientific_ experts on amblyopia are optometrists with additional Ph.D.'s. Optometrists have been part of multidisciplinary National Eye Institute studies of amblyopia. One of the few research textbooks on amblyopia was written by optometrists. Articles in the premier scientific journal Nature have been written by optometrists on amblyopia. Most optometrists have had courses in the scientific basis for amblyopia and strabismus, as well as binocular visual processing (although, admittedly, the courses have improved vastly in the last 25 years).

    26. Re:0o by cornface · · Score: 1

      Please don't put all optometrists into the same basket, and characterize them all as quacks!

      Apologies, that's not what I was trying to do at all. The quackwatch page has a lot of good information on it that I think helps to clarify the issue of near/far sightedness, as well as correct what seemed like a misperception on the part of the original poster.

    27. Re:0o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have amblyopia and had surgery to correct the "strong muscle" that was pulling my eye in. 29 years after that surgery (I was 9) my current opthamologist would now give me corrective lenses and (maybe) a patch at 4 or 5. My daughter has had corrective lenses she was 2 and seven years later is doing well.

      The muscles are reacting to the optics. Fix the optics (at an early enough age) and the muscles will behave.

      Now my eye is way out. It flipped from in to out sometime in my teens. I usually only tell others about my double vision when I am driving :-) You get used to it. Really. Actually the brain suppresses the extra confusing signals where the overlap is not clean. Peripheral vision is fine.

      People think the lack of depth perception is an issue but the parallax of our narrow set eyes only works out to less than 10 feet. Hitting a fast-pitch baseball is not possible, and 3D movies are dream as well.

    28. Re:0o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Although I do work for an ophthalmologist, I am not an ophthalmologist nor an optometrist myself. While I have picked up some stuff, I am by no means a qualified expert. So this may be wrong to some degree.

      Near/Far-sightedness is not caused by "lazy eyes", but by refractive errors in the lens of your eye. A true lazy eye will not track properly, remaining fixed in one location or giving a hint of motion. This is a problem with the muscles surrounding the eye.
      Plus, an optometrist is not fully qualified to diagnose pathology of the eye such as amblyopia. An optometrist focuses mainly on refractive error. If he notices anything outside the scope of refraction, they will refer you to a ophthalmologist.

    29. Re:0o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      my brother had this condition. back in 1988 or so he would go to the doctors office and play "prescription video games" with a special pair of glasses. he also had to wear a patch in grade 6

    30. Re:0o by Retric · · Score: 1

      I've doubled the sample size

      Not really, there are two post's with the same problems, but they are a "self selecting population" aka if it had worked for you then you would have been less likely to post. The real "sample size" would be everyone that had read the article and used the eye patch. Not simply those who posted a negative response.

      However, with a large enough self selecting population you can use the sample size of "everyone that had the procedure" and say something like "If 1,000 people are complaining then 1,000 in 1,000,000 people must have problems with this procedure so we should look into it...

      PS: 1,000 and 1,000,000 being made of numbers.

    31. Re:0o by maxume · · Score: 1

      The human body is argueably more complex than a car.

      Also, you don't actually have to carry health insurance(in some places anyway).

      In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell points out that people tend to sue doctors that they don't like -- if patients like a incompetent doctor, they don't sue him, if they dislike a genious, call the lawyer. Go figure.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    32. Re:0o by fferret · · Score: 1

      Hey, it didn't hurt Marty Feldman's career any!

      --
      We're through being cool! Eliminate the ninnies and the twits! -Devo
    33. Re:0o by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      The human body is argueably more complex than a car.

      The complexity defense is a good one. It holds up well against a jury of lay people and even judges with things that they have no experience with like technical things or medical issues.

      I'm sure you have read and understand all of the laws of your city, state, nation, and international law. And any ignorance of that in the event that you infract upon one of those will get you off. After all, it takes someone 7 years of formal training, and a fulltime job to understand and halfway know a subset of the law, so ignorance of a normal person is forgivable and often dismissed for small infractions of the law.

      In fact, I used the complexity defense of a mechanic one time. My father had an electrical short in his car, and it took the mechanic like a week or a week and a half to find it. I said, "There are miles of electrical wire in your car. Its complex." The mechanic did find the short. It was in the drivers seat, and the mechanic accidentally found the short when he sat down in the drivers seat with the electrical stuff hooked up to the car. He put some electrical tape around the wire, and it was OK for over 10 years after that.

      We are talking about a medical condition so rare that lay people only know it as "lazy eye". I've known people with it, and people have shared on this discussion about having it or having friends, coworkers, or family with it, like the post above mine.

      That post said:

      I recall that at age 2 there is something like a 98% chance of correcting it, and by age 9 there is a 2% chance. He tried the patch for quite a while with little improvement. A different doctor then had him get rid of the patch and had him use some drops in the 'good' eye instead. These drops would numb the focusing of the 'good' eye and allow the 'bad' eye to strengthen more by doing more work. It worked great!! He is now 12, long done with the treatment, and although his eyes are not perfect, they are very much improved. I only wish we had gone with the drops much earlier.

      So, this lay person understood that there was a window of time where the problem could be corrected. At one point of the window, the treatment was 98% successful. He did not say when he started treatment, but it appears as though it was definitely before 9.

      It was not that the first doctor, supposedly trained and an expert in eye issues, noticed that his treatment was not working, and it took a separate doctor to try a different method before getting results. To me, the first doctor did not have the proper skills, experience, or desire to help with the problem, and does not deserve payment.

    34. Re:0o by maxume · · Score: 1

      Re the complexity, I was speaking toward the stretch in the analogy; fiddling with a human carries more risk than fiddling with a car and so on.

      Anyway, I disagree about not paying the doctor. Sure, lesson learned and move on, but the guy asked him for a service, and he provided it, albeit poorly. If a mother takes her child to a doctor with a cold and he fails to cure it, does she have to pay? (I realize I am being obnoxious here) The doctor doesn't know how to cure the cold(no one does!), is it his fault that the mother brought him the child?

      I think I see what you are saying, but we apparently disagree on the details. It is unfortunate that there is no mechanism for evaluating doctors(perhaps there is, but beyond word of mouth?), but the patient acted well in this situation, he abandoned the boob.

      A similar situation is that of an incompetant employee. Would it be fair for the employer to keep him working, and upon terminating him for incompetance, withold pay because of the incompetance? Sure, it is much more difficult for the lay person to evaluate the competance of a doctor than it is for the employer the employee, but other than that, what's the difference?

      What it comes down to is, no one cares more about your condition than you do. Act accordingly.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    35. Re:0o by smellsofbikes · · Score: 1

      I've known a few one-eyed pilots in my time and they do fine. Depth perception is a matter of many, many cues and parallax is only a small factor in it.

      But yeah, the critical thing is getting optical correction at a young age. By age 5-9 (depending on who you consider an authority) there will be irremedial damage to vision, in fusion and tracking, from what I know.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    36. Re:0o by pentalive · · Score: 1

      I *have* this very problem... I was cross-eyed when I was young, at 7 (almost too late) I was able to get the operation to un-cross my eyes, they moved muscles around on my left eye (I think) Then for a long time I went with an eyepatch on my good eye and I used a "ViewMaster" (round cardboard disks with small pictures in a binocular looing thing)with special disks for excercice. My Dad made slides with colored lines and shapes.

      Anyway my right eye is still much more capable than my left. Looking at the same text with one eye then the other, with the right the text is clear and easy to read, with the right the text is fuzzy, but what is even stranger even when I can make out the shapes of the letters (and that is hard)The letters look strange, sort of like using a font in 15 point when you only have 12point, blocky and distorted, reading becomes very hard. My eye Doctor says my brain just never really developed the circutry for my left eye because it was the crossed one.

      I tend to close or cover my left eye when I read a lot.

    37. Re:0o by smellsofbikes · · Score: 1

      That sucks: I'm sorry to hear about that. I've read about incredibly abused children who are kept in dark closets for their first six years and they grow up basically blind because their brains don't correctly develop the areas that work with vision. To a lesser extent the same thing goes with language: the brain forms areas that deal with the fundamentals of hearing and speech. (That's why it's much harder to learn a language as an adult than as a young child.)

      A lot of people in your situation seem to be entirely (functionally) blind in one eye: while it has no mechanical reasons for being blind they cannot see anything through it at all. At least you've partial redundancy.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    38. Re:0o by fshalor · · Score: 1

      My main complaint is that my "good" eye is much more screwed up from the patch wearing days than the "bad": lazy eye. And to clarify: my vision never came back in my good eye after the patch was removed. Before I had the patch forced on me, I had good vision in both eyes, with just a wandering issue. In the days following the patch treatment, my good eye never bounced back. In weeks, I was still having color issues with it (compared to my lazy eye.) In months, I was needing glasses. In years, my perscription had gotten worse.

      The RTCW playing had one noticable effect; I used to shoot rifles with my right eye in the past, but the stability of the eye has continued to decline (pulling all nighters in a chem-e degree probably didn't help.) But with a solid year of RTCW, I noticed I could occasionally use my right eye for viewfinder stuff again. Some days its quite stable. Some days it isn't. Its perferable to use it for sighting, since it has better color response and better long distance behavior.

      I'd be very interested in this VR method of eye strengthening. Sounds like a good idea.

      --
      -=fshalor ::this post not spellchecked. move along::
    39. Re:0o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You make so many assumptions based on how you think eyes work. You're wrong.
      I've gotten rid of my 'lazy' eye, as well as fixed the 'astigmatism' and myopia in my eyes.


      If doctors knew how eyes worked they could tell by looking at the person what treatment would work.

      Sigh, same stupidness as the camera for autistics. Getting rid of my 'aspergers' i no longer have social cue problems.

  2. Obvious... by Tackhead · · Score: 0

    Nothing for you to see here. Please learn to make better use of your non-dominant eye.

  3. For the love of God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just look me in the eye Doctor Lazy Eye!

  4. You clod! by Eightyford · · Score: 1, Funny

    I only have one eye, you insensitive clod!

    --
    Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
    1. Re:You clod! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well then you better keep it in shape.

    2. Re:You clod! by Tackhead · · Score: 1
      > I only have one eye, you insensitive clod!

      Warning: Do not stare into laser with remaining eye.

    3. Re:You clod! by pedalman · · Score: 1
      I only have one eye, you insensitive clod!
      Arrrrrrrrr, matey! Me, too.

      Sincerely yours,

      Blackbeard

      --
      Friends don't let friends line-dance.
  5. RV treatment? by darth_MALL · · Score: 0, Funny

    I fail to see how that can help me with my lazy eye...

  6. yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    I'd stay skeptical of such a claim until there is a peer-reviewed paper out.

    Yeah, I'd have to see it to believe it.

  7. This is news? by Kenja · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I knew about this way back in the mid 90s when I was working with stereoscopic LCD shutter glassses. Forcing both eyes to work at the same rate corrects the problem of one eye being favored. The down side is that untill your eyes are corrected you will be NASTY head aches from using such devices.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:This is news? by toleraen · · Score: 1

      What's your point? The article talks about utilizing VR to treat it. Did those glasses display playable video games? TFA didn't claim a breakthrough treatment style, just a more enjoyable, possibly faster way to correct things. Hell, I think everyone would be happier if more treatments involved having to play video games! That's what's newsworthy.

    2. Re:This is news? by Kenja · · Score: 1

      Yes, I spent many a afternoon playing decent in stereoscopic 3d.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    3. Re:This is news? by cparker15 · · Score: 1

      It may not be news to you, but then again, nothing is ever news to everyone. Perhaps you should save your comments for when you have something useful to chip in.

      --
      Have you driven a fnord... lately?

      You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.

    4. Re:This is news? by bogd · · Score: 1
      Yes, I spent many a afternoon playing decent in stereoscopic 3d.

      I don't know how you managed it. If I had access to that kind of technology back then, I'm sure most of the games I would have played would have been pretty indecent...

  8. Umm so what does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Bikini babes for the strong eye and Pr0n for the weak?

    1. Re:Umm so what does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's exercize your hand more than your eye.

  9. Well done! by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's always nice to see a growing technology such as the much-hyped "virtual reality" used to do good beyond it's years as a fantastically annoying, overused buzzword.

    Given the timeframe, I guess it'll be ten years or so before a "blog" or a "podcast" is used to cure something.

    --
    Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
    1. Re:Well done! by rolfwind · · Score: 1

      I suppose that's because VR has been dead as a buzzword for quite a while. I actually don't remember hearing it in marketing since the failed Nintendo Gameboy VR thingy and by then it's trendy use was waning in existence anyway.

      By their trendy nature, these words go in and out of fashion and marketers like to jump to a new set of words that hasn't built up resistance from their audience yet. The art of selling.

      Remember when the term "clicks-n-mortar" was still being used? I suspect "podcasts" and "blogs" will cease to be buzzwords within a few years, and either simply be normal, everyday words we use because that phenonema was sucessful on some level or will eventually fade out of our consciousness.

    2. Re:Well done! by maxume · · Score: 1

      Blogs are already curing the ill's of government and mass media.

      Aren't they?

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  10. Virtual Reality by BigZaphod · · Score: 4, Funny

    Too bad VR can't cure Lazy Person. I seem to be quite badly infected with it...

    --
    Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
    1. Re:Virtual Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was going to reply to this, but I'm also too lazy. Oh wait....

    2. Re:Virtual Reality by kfg · · Score: 1

      No, but I've got some RR that'll do the trick:

      Drop and give me twenty!

      Count out loud.

      I can't heeeeeeeeeeeear you; Maggot!

      KFG

    3. Re:Virtual Reality by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 1

      It surely does cure it! Of course, that would require getting up, turning off the tv, finding a treatment center online, writing down the directions, putting gas in the car... eh. It's already past 4. Maybe tomorrow.

      --
      "I only speak the truth"
      Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
  11. I would've RTFA... by GillBates0 · · Score: 0

    ...had my eyes not been too lazy to read it.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
    1. Re:I would've RTFA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The human body is composed of trillions of cells, not billions. Just thought you might want to know your sig is ridiculously misinformed.

    2. Re:I would've RTFA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since one trillion is 1000 billion (in the US, anyway), the human body is still composed of billions of cells.

    3. Re:I would've RTFA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My body is composed of dozens of cells. Several billion dozens.

  12. that's nice by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's nice. Let me know when they find a way to fix lazy butt.

    --
    This guy's the limit!
    1. Re:that's nice by Panaflex · · Score: 1

      Sweet Jesus, that was funny!

      --
      I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
    2. Re:that's nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, there's exciting work going on in the area of steel-toe boot treatment for lazy butt. Traditionally, the experiments begin with the researcher shouting "Say hello to my leetle fren!"

  13. somewhat related company by outcast36 · · Score: 4, Informative

    A somewhat related company is NovaVision. I think they deal more with stroke patients though. (I am a computing nerd, not a nerd who tracks problems organic.) Their treatment was really more training for the brain though (specifically training a new part of the brain to handle vision). I'm also pretty sure they were FDA approved. It raises an intersting systems question though. Where does vision happen? Eye, brain, nervous system?

    Good times for those of us with poor eyesight, and a hankering for wetware.

    Anywho, I am not in any way related. Just droppin knowledge.

    --
    Technology Consulting & Free Downloads
    1. Re:somewhat related company by notea42 · · Score: 1

      I am not an optometrist, but my rough understanding from a bunch of neuroscience talks in grad school is that vision is sort of pipelined, where there are a series of processing phases. One stage looks for lines (vertical, horizontal, diagonal) while the next responds to shapes formed by these lines (circle, square, ect...) and the next recognizes complex patterns composed of shapes, like faces. Movement and color gets factored in somewhere. Incidentally, the research into this partly done by strapping locusts to a table, putting electrodes in various parts of their brain, then showing them pictures and moving the pictures around and measuring which neurons fire...it was probably one of the stranger experimental setups I'd heard of. Back on topic, it doesn't surprise me that this technique works, as science seems to be demonstrating that neurons and synapses are surprisingly flexible and can be retrained to perform differently.

  14. Lazy Eyes by kangpeh · · Score: 1

    Does that mean that the lazy eyes will also both point straight? They are also talking about the eyes getting "stronger" I see. Does that mean that if we focus hard, our eyes will get stronger? What's this mean for lasik surgery! OMG!

    1. Re:Lazy Eyes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only untreated amblyopia causes eyes to drift. The brain stops paying attention to the input from a weak eye, and eventually stops sending signals to the muscles that move it, causing creepy driftage.

      The traditional treatment for amblyopia is to patch the stronger eye, forcing the weaker eye to become stronger. The problem is that it's really hard to balance between the two eyes, and that amblyopia must be caught early on (i.e. before kiddos are even old enough to know the letters for those stupid eye chart tests). If amblyopia isn't caught early enough, nothing can fix a lazy eye, even this. It's just quicker and better socially than using an eye patch over the strong eye.

      This means nothing for lasik surgery. Lasik changes the shape of the lens. Eye exercises can sometimes help a person with weak eyes, but as you age, your lens becomes harder. A non-perfect lens that hardens is (from what mother dearest told me when she was all excited about her lasik procedure) the problem with older folks.

    2. Re:Lazy Eyes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My ex-wife has strabismus. The muscles involved in the weak eye of that that disorder are the muscles that move the eyeball, not the muscles that focus.

      As another poster mentioned, laser surgery won't help an old fart's need for reading glasses. However, I was recently delighted to discover that I have a cataract in my left eye, and my insurance will cover that surgery (but not laser surgery). The side benefit is that my life-long nearsightedness (I bet 95% of /.'s readers have corrective lenses) will be cured, and my old-fart farsightedness will be cured as well, since they replace the lens itself.

      All I have to do is get off my lazy ass and call an eye surgeon.

    3. Re:Lazy Eyes by xtieburn · · Score: 1

      Different areas.

      Focusing is to do with the lens and the cornea. As far as I am aware there is no way of repairing that fault with exercises.

      Lazy eye is caused by the brain essentially cutting out falty information being recieved from one eye and ultimately forgetting about it altogether. Exercises (and originally eyepatches) would force the brain to get it up and running again.

    4. Re:Lazy Eyes by ivan256 · · Score: 1

      You realize that you just said you were delighted to have your eye put into a device that resembles a cigar cutter, right?

      You broke my brain.

  15. Great by OSS_ilation · · Score: 1

    "Supposedly, the system will do in 1 hour what used to take 400 hours, but I'd stay skeptical of such a claim until there is a peer-reviewed paper out."

    I'll keep my eyes peeled.

  16. Much simpler solution from 30 years ago by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's a much simpler solution from about thirty years ago. The patient is given polarized glasses with different polarization axes for each eye, and a matching screen with two polarizers to be placed in front of a TV. This turns TV viewing into an eye exercise. Cheap and simple.

    1. Re:Much simpler solution from 30 years ago by Col.+Klink+(retired) · · Score: 1

      Back in my day, I was given red/green glasses and told to watch B&W TV. I suppose it might be difficult to find B&W TVs nowadays...

      --

      -- Don't Tase me, bro!

    2. Re:Much simpler solution from 30 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey cool, with current LCD tv's you only need polaroids and ajust the rotation of the lenses, since they have the polariser built in on the screen.

    3. Re:Much simpler solution from 30 years ago by dr-suess-fan · · Score: 1

      Interesting solution. As far as I know, you should be able to turn down the colour of any TV with the settings. The equivalent of 'desaturation' I think.

  17. As a strabismus sufferer... by nvrrobx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...I'd be interested to see if this actually pans out. Patching is what caused my lazy eye to become as bad as it is.

    I've had corrective surgery for my strabismus three times, and each time has made significant improvements, but most of my vision still comes from my one good eye. I'm one of the lucky ones - I have a good null point, so my eyes don't bounce all the time. I can drive just fine. :)

    BTW, the medical term for lazy eye is actually occular nystagmus.

    1. Re:As a strabismus sufferer... by AnonymousPrick · · Score: 1
      FTFA: Because the amblyopic eye is inferior for some reason, the brain decides to use the good eye.

      ...but most of my vision still comes from my one good eye.

      Which leads to my question: Has your overall vision improved?
      I'm thinking that, if your brain is using one eye because the other is inferior for whatever reason, then doing anything to use both eyes would decrease your overall quality of your vision. Although, it sounds like that the "bad" eye was being corrected so that your vision would improve, yes?

      --
      Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
    2. Re:As a strabismus sufferer... by therevolution · · Score: 1
      BTW, the medical term for lazy eye is actually occular nystagmus.

      I don't think that's right. There are different, subjective ways to characterize a "lazy eye," but amblyopia is what "lazy eye" means to optometrists. At least, this is what my last optometrist told me.

      Also, Wikipedia's entry for "lazy eye" goes to amblyopia.

    3. Re:As a strabismus sufferer... by nvrrobx · · Score: 1

      In my case (as is the case with some other strabismus sufferers), both eyes are physically good. Strabismus is a condition where your eyes are crossed severely. In my case, my eyes pointed directly at my nose when I was born. My brain shut down most of the input from the right eye because it was confusing. Unfortunately, being as my issue is neurological, the opthamologists haven't come up with a way to correct it.

      My vision has improved over the years, but I will never have fantastic depth perception.

    4. Re:As a strabismus sufferer... by Amouth · · Score: 1

      i Hate my eyes.. they will randomly switch dominance..

      this is why am good at shooting left or right handed.. i just focus for a min and now that eye is the dominant one.

      it is quite annoying when they randomly switch on their own

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    5. Re:As a strabismus sufferer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Let's get our terminology straight.

      Nystagmus is something different. It's a neurological sign exhibited by a rapidly repeated movement of an eye in a certain direction. It often indicates neurological injury.

      Amblyopia is a condition caused by having a lazy eye ("exotropia") that wasn't corrected early enough causing deteriorating vision in the weak eye.

      Exotropia is what people commonly refer to as a "lazy eye" which is most often caused by muscular weakness of eye muscles. (Esotropia is similar, but causing inward drifting of the eye, making you appear "cross-eyed")

      And yes, IAAD (I am a doctor :).

    6. Re:As a strabismus sufferer... by Avogadros+Letter · · Score: 1

      ... actually, the PC term we use with our three-year old son is "overachieving eye." Because who wants to focus on the negative with a developing youngster?

      --
      $ touch .signature
    7. Re:As a strabismus sufferer... by pizzaman100 · · Score: 1
      BTW, the medical term for lazy eye is actually occular nystagmus.

      The medical term for lazy eye is Amblyopia. Ocular nystagmus is an involuntary twitching of the eye (IANAD, but my daughter has a related eye condition called Leber's).

  18. Caspar Weinberger, dead at 88 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Fascist tool Caspar Weinberger was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work selling weapons to Iran to fund Nicaraguan death squads, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

  19. That's not too good by Programmer_In_Traini · · Score: 1

    Hum, that's not too good, if this proves to be really effective then the media and the mass won't be too happy to find out that games can be good for your health. I wonder what Jack Johnson would think of this :)

    --
    If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
    1. Re:That's not too good by reverius · · Score: 1

      Surely you mean Jack Thompson, not Jack Johnson.

    2. Re:That's not too good by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      I think you should get yourself some new glasses :P
      I'm pretty certain in context you meant Jack Thompson.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    3. Re:That's not too good by Programmer_In_Traini · · Score: 1

      LOL, yes, Jack Thompson is the one i meant :D

      --
      If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
  20. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What would Forest Whitaker do?

  21. The old method couldn't be much worse by ianscot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Any more direct method that was at all effective couldn't help but be a dramatic improvement over eye patches for hours a day.

    The Docs consulted prescribed the usual regimen of eye patches and so on for my daughter as a quite young child. I can say from experience that it's not easy to get a child of that age -- and treatment when young was strongly preferable -- to live with the patch. Even when she wasn't particularly annoyed by it, we were dealing with something on the level of brushing your teeth in a little kid. My parenting skills weren't up to the task, and our treatment was hit and miss.

    Eventually my daughter's lazy eye has come around by itself, more or less. I'd much rather have been able to intervene with a more active measure, though.

    --
    "Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
  22. Younger Patients Only.. by AWhiteFlame · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have a non-muscular lazy eye and after reading the article I'm still convinced this is just for the younger set, Age 12, when the recommend patching the good idea to force the weak eye to work harder. Unfortunately I was only taken to an eye doctor at the age of about 12 so the patching never really worked for me. I'd be surprised of this would actually do anything for the older set.

    --
    "Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
    1. Re:Younger Patients Only.. by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 1

      I don't know. 20 year olds can wear glasses that make everything upsidedown for a few weeks (they are basically taped on and mask out anything that isn't being flipped upside down) and when they take them off normal looks upside down for a few weeks.

      --

      --

      WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
    2. Re:Younger Patients Only.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Similar experiment I saw on PBS (in the SciAm show, iirc): 20-something female wears mask that blocks out all light. Strong magnetic fields are applied to her occipital lobe, causing instant blindness. She learns sign language while wearing the mask for two weeks.

      Now the kicker: when the mask was removed, she was still blind. And she forgot sign language when a strong magnetic field was applied to her occipital lobe, indicating that this part of the brain was "rewired" when presented with none of its normal stimulus and lots of new, tactile stimuli.

    3. Re:Younger Patients Only.. by AWhiteFlame · · Score: 1

      Thats human adaptation, not eye development..

      --
      "Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
  23. until there is a peer-reviewed paper out by Threni · · Score: 1

    > I'd stay skeptical of such a claim until there is a peer-reviewed paper out."

    I'm going to hold out for the report that rebunks *that* paper in another 5 years or so.

  24. Not new.. by turtleAJ · · Score: 1, Funny

    This isn't new at all...

    I've been doing this for years...

    On a night out, I keep one eye on my girlfriend's eyes, and another one scans the room...

    1. Re:Not new.. by vialation · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about? Slashdotter's don't have girlfriends!

      While we're on it, I get practice by keeping one eye on my mountain dew can, and the other watching to see when gentoo finishes installing...

    2. Re:Not new.. by pedalman · · Score: 1
      On a night out, I keep one eye on my girlfriend's eyes, and another one scans the room...
      Bloody hell, Harry!

      Professor Moody just posted on /.!

      --
      Friends don't let friends line-dance.
  25. preference for peer review... by JimBobJoe · · Score: 1

    I'd stay skeptical of such a claim until there is a peer-reviewed paper out

    I think you're demanding the unreasonable. It's a pain in the ass to peer when you have lazy eye.

  26. I have a form of that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most of the time my eyes track on the same thing. When I'm tired (or they are), however, they tend to drift apart.

    I get a double-vision effect. It's annoying, but not disabling. When I notice it and concentrate, they stay together.

    1. Re:I have a form of that by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 1, Funny

      I've heard of this; it's a condition known in academic circles as "drunk."

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
    2. Re:I have a form of that by SheeEttin · · Score: 1

      As do I. When I'm doing math homework or the like, (e.g. reading something boring) I often relax the muscles in my right eye and look at things only with my left eye. I'm also slightly nearsighted in my right eye, but I'm not sure if this is caused by the relaxing, or if the relaxing is caused by the nearsightedness as an attempt by my brain to discard the blurry image.

  27. New exercise video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Schwarzenegger has a new exercise video out for what he calls "girlie eye syndrome". Suppose to correct the problem and give you rock hard retinas.

  28. Making the treatment sweeter by mahju · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My brother has a turned eye, which he had as a kid, not done much about in between, and has made a come back in his early 30s.

    What I find interesting about this is the concept of treatment delivered through a game. Its damm annoying to have to have one eye covered by a patch, and with too many of your mates saying "ah-hahaha" and singing sea shanties, its not really so much fun either. It seems to deliver the treatment in a much more palatable fashion, and so more effective.

  29. VR? Bah! Pong!!! by mmurphy000 · · Score: 2, Funny

    My brother helped correct his lazy eye when he was young via a classic Pong game, just by playing with his good eye patched. VR is for whippersnappers with big budgets... :-)

    --
    The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
  30. Easier with young boys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wore an eyepatch when I was young. I didn't like going out in public until I got a plastic pirate eyepatch to wear over the adhesive patch. Looked much cooler.

    Nothing like being a pirate! Arrgh!

  31. Lazy eye?? by eclectro · · Score: 1


    Isn't that what causes dupes on slashdot?? There's a cure now??

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  32. First hand experience. by Eric+Damron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was diagnosed with amblyopia at the age five. They tried making me wear a patch over my good eye to force my bad eye to work harder but it was too late. Amblyopia must be caught at a VERY early age or nothing helps.

    It's really a weird condition. I can force myself to see out of my lazy eye but normally I don't. For example when I read I only see the words in my good eye and if I try to read with my lazy eye it's like I can see the words but can't recognize them. Weird. The last time I took an eye exam to renew my driver's license they had one of those machines that shows different letters to each eye. I read off the line I saw and the officer asked "Are you blind in one eye?" I said "No, why" and he said "Because you read every other letter." I didn't even see the letters being shown to my lazy eye.

    --
    The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
    1. Re:First hand experience. by mckyj57 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was diagnosed with amblyopia at the age five. They tried making me wear a patch over my good eye to force my bad eye to work harder but it was too late. Amblyopia must be caught at a VERY early age or nothing helps.

      I must take issue with this, lest someone see it and stop trying for their
      6-year-old. It is not nearly as easy to treat amblyopia at ages greater than
      5, but it is definitely possible.

      I had amblyopia and it was not caught until I was 8. I had the operation, and
      did years of therapy. It did correct the problem for the most part. While I
      still use one eye for reading, I do use both for distance vision -- and my
      eyes do track together except when I am very tired.

    2. Re:First hand experience. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same experience for me. I can "see" out of my left eye but it has something like 20/70 vision. Even corrected everything looks swimmy/drunk. I had the patches at age 3-4 so you'd think they caught it early but I guess it never really took. At 37 I've pretty much given up on the bad eye and only wear a contact lens in the right. Save $ though...

  33. skeptical and lazy by 0xDAVE · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'd stay skeptical of such a claim until there is a peer-reviewed paper out. Perhaps you should look for one! A good place to start is here: http://www.virart.nott.ac.uk/ibit/

  34. Left eye, right eye by syntap · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wish there was a quick way to change your eye-edness. I am right handed but left-eyed, and tasks that require aiming (like darts, shooting, etc) are handicapped.

    1. Re:Left eye, right eye by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 1

      At least your not left-eared! I can't sing on key for the life of me!

      --
      "I only speak the truth"
      Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
    2. Re:Left eye, right eye by crosstalk · · Score: 1

      have you not watched firebirds?

      Tommy Lee Jones gies you the way to correct this

      1. put panties on your head covering the eye you do not want to be dominant.
      2. Over other place a periscope
      3. now get in Jeep
      4. Drive around like this until you drive normally

      --
      An armed society is a polite Society
    3. Re:Left eye, right eye by mdielmann · · Score: 1

      I wish there was a quick way to change your eye-edness.

      It's not quick, but practice can fix this. Switch your primary focus from one eye to the other. Objects at different depths are good for this. After a while you'll find that you can switch almost instantly (say, half a second either way) and maintain which eye is primary at will. It's the same thing that's required to switch which hand your write with, or which foot you kick with.

      --
      Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
    4. Re:Left eye, right eye by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      I wish there was a quick way to change your eye-edness. I am right handed but left-eyed, and tasks that require aiming (like darts, shooting, etc) are handicapped.

      I'm right handed and left eyed as well. Not to many people know their "eye-edness".

      I was told that hitting a baseball is the only advantage to being cross hand-eye dominant. Makes sense.

      The real funny thing is that I'm about as good at darts with my eyes closed as with them open. Try it, you'll be surprised. The dart board never moves, so vision does not give you much of an advantage. Get oriented, and just throw the thing.

      I met one guy that could hit bulls all day long blindfolded.

    5. Re:Left eye, right eye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I met one guy that could hit bulls all day long blindfolded.

      I tried that once, but the bulls hit back a LOT harder.

    6. Re:Left eye, right eye by gobbo · · Score: 1
      I am right handed but left-eyed, and tasks that require aiming (like darts, shooting, etc) are handicapped.

      Aye, me too, and it's because of corrective measures when I was a small child. Born cross-eyed and various kinds of blurry, they patched and put drops in my over-dominant right eye. I sometimes wonder if I told them when to stop, and no-one listened.

      Now my left eye is dominant, but reverts if I'm really tired, which makes for some interesting vision. The worst is trying to play pool: my chin just gets in the way.

      Now my son has amblyopia and a patch at the age of 5 -- and I'm trying to listen to his honest opinions on the matter.

      --
      Damn those pesky terrorists
    7. Re:Left eye, right eye by onemorechip · · Score: 1

      I've long suspected that eye-hand cross-dominance affected my tennis. Some think this helps the forehand and hurts the backhand, but I have my doubts. If I'm hitting a shot while running side-to-side, then my dominant eye is towards the net for a forehand but away from the net for a backhand, so it makes sense that the forehand would be helped in that case, but if I hit the ball from a standing position facing the net, then my dominant eye is closer to the racket for a backhand stroke, and so I am viewing the shot more from the racket's perspective. Thus, for a standing shot, cross-dominance helps the backhand.

      What I think breaks the tie is the serve, a shot for which cross-dominance is a disadvantage. I can improve my aim on the serve if I close my left eye briefly before tossing the ball, to get a right-eyed view of the court.

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    8. Re:Left eye, right eye by bogd · · Score: 1

      Actually, a study of the American Association of Ophthalmology found no correlation between hand-eye dominance and baseball performance. I would guess that this holds true for other sports formerly thought to be affected by mixed dominance.

    9. Re:Left eye, right eye by syntap · · Score: 1

      By the way, for those who are wondering how you test right-eye, left-eye, do this:

      - Go outside
      - Find a light pole or other large ovject at least fifteen or twenty feet away.
      - With both eyes open, extend your arm so your thumb is on the object... hold it there
      - Now shut right eye and keep left open, then shut left eye and keep right eye open.
      - The single eye still showing your thumb over the object is your dominant eye. The non-dominant eye will show your thumb next to the object.

      This is why cross-dominance is hard on dart throwers and gun shooters... even though the target looks like it is set dead on, your accuracy won't follow through.

  35. I was one of teh developers by WelshieinNZ · · Score: 1

    Hi, I was actually one of the developers of the system. Basically, it doesn`t do it ALL in 1 hour! lol :) What it did is show hugely visible results in 1 hour. The child would come in to undergo the treratment and after about a month, the eyesight would be near perfect. Each session however would last around 20 - 30 minutes and it was done by giving the eye two images at the same time, with one eye being fed half the game, whilst the other was receiving the other. If you want a direct link to the website, check out this link http://www.virart.nottingham.ac.uk/virart/index.ph p?option=content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=31 Developing the system was a bit of a nightmare. You always had to take into account the fact that there were two of everything and what could/could not be displayed. A logistical nightmare! :) But check out their site and e-mail them. They`re a great bunch of people and would love your questions.

    1. Re:I was one of teh developers by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 1

      Oh look, another victim of this terrible disease...

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
  36. I've got it by esemplastic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Last week when I got new glasses, my eye doctor told me that the reason they can't really correct my vision in my left eye is not because of a defect, but rather because I have "lazy eye" ... my vision wasn't corrected when I was young, and now my brain basically ignores input from that eye - the neuronal connections weren't fully formed. My eye doesn't drift to the side or anything like that (in fact, I had no idea about this condition until my eye exam last week, and I'm 30 years old).

    So anyway, rad - I'm excited at the prospect that I might actually regain some vision in that eye. Am I too old? Anybody?

    1. Re:I've got it by Kaptain+Kruton · · Score: 1

      I am not sure about this new treatment, but I would say that you are too old. The reason current treatments work is because they force the developing brain and eye to work together. But after one reaches a certain age and development completes, this cannot be done.

  37. Where do I sign up? by anoack · · Score: 0

    Yeah, umm I have a lazy eye and I think I need VR treatment. Also, what games will we be playing? Dibs on the BFG.

  38. Stupid fucking mods by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You modded this idiot up to +5 for what? Telling you he did this in the 90's? Well, apart from the fact that this is different from what said idiot thought it was, WHO FUCKING CARES?

    HOW IS THAT INTERESTING YOU GOD DAMNED MORONS?

  39. Well done ;) by loconet · · Score: 2, Funny

    "but I'd stay skeptical of such a claim until there is a peer-reviewed paper out"

    And that my friends is a professional /. submitter. Anticipating the "that claim is bs! there is no peer-review!" comments. Well executed.

    --
    [alk]
    1. Re:Well done ;) by 0xDAVE · · Score: 1

      More like typical /. there's shed loads of peer reviewed papers!

  40. I knew video games were good for something by chocolateeater · · Score: 1

    See? Video games really do improve eye coordination!

  41. I'm doubly-lazy! by duffhuff · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think I actually have two lazy eyes, probably brought on at an early age by nearsightedness and / or astigmatism. I believe the explanation I recieved was that the muscles on one side of the eye are stronger then the other side, and the eye gets pulled out of alignment in certain situations. I had surgury on one eye to mitigate the effects, but I still have the symptoms which cause all kinds of wierd effects for me, as I will try to explain.

    I can, at will, cause either one of my eyes to break convergence and look somewhere else and then alternate which eye is lazy by "looking" out the other eye. That "lazy" eye will then start looking outward and I'll get double vision, but how noticable it is depends on how out-of-whack my eye convergence is (I can also control how much convergence I loose, so I can go from slight, almost overlapping double vision, to nearly completely different viewpoints). If I'm looking at something to the extreme right or left I usually end up looking with just one eye, but I don't notice the double-vision for some reason. I've since learned to physically turn my head / body towards what I'm looking at since that makes it physically possible for me to look at something with both eyes. Another trick I use is to look at something with my "outside eye" (i.e. if I'm looking at something to my right, I will look at it with my left eye, visa-versa if looking left). I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone, but AFAIK, most people should be able to "look" through either of their eyes at will. Over time, I've managed to adapt my behaviour so that most of the time these symptoms don't occur.

    The most dangerous downsides to all this is that when I get extremely tired, or very drunk, I can no longer keep my eyes converged and normal vision becomes impossible. Nothing short of intensely focusing on a high-contrast area (say, the sharp edge of a table) will bring convergence back. However, I'm not sure if this happens because of my lazy eyes, or if it happens to other people. Driving while tired is extremely dangerous for me, especially at night, since I loose all sense of depth perception when I get double-vision and I suddenly have no idea which lane I'm in or where I'm headed.

    One interesting aspect about all this is that if I cover one eye then I can no longer get this behaviour to happen, which has saved me a few times during extremely boring lectures! Something about looking with both eyes causes the trouble.

    1. Re:I'm doubly-lazy! by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 1

      You sure you're not actually one of those wierd lizard things that can look everywhere and focus only to hit insects with it's tongue?

      --
      "I only speak the truth"
      Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
    2. Re:I'm doubly-lazy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think my situation is similar to yours, but without any of the wierd double vision stuff. My eyes are lazy, but only in that they point in two completely different directions. My vision is equally good in both eyes and I can use them interchangeably. At a very young age I went through the patches thing and it must have worked. I had an operation as well, but my eyes went back out of alignment.

      I only see through one eye at any given time, but I can concsiously choose which eye to look with. Usually this is determined by where I'm looking. My brain conveniently places the input from the other eye into the appropriate place in my peripheral vision(one of my eyes usually points pretty far off to the side). A useful side effect is that there is always one side of my periphery that is very detailed. I can if I want to, pay attention to the input from both eyes and basically look in two directions at once, but I try not to for fear my ability to disregard the input from the other eye may deteriorate.

      Since I only use one eye at a time I don't have any depth perception, but it has never been a problem. I suppose I've devised other ways to judge distance. I can drive without any problems. I do notice the lack of depth perception occasionally. I used to be a decent baseball player, but haven't played baseball, or even catch for years. Now I've noticed I have trouble judging how quickly the ball is approaching, or how far it is going to go (if it's coming toward me). I guess I've forgotten whatever trick I used to make those judgements when I was playing frequently.

    3. Re:I'm doubly-lazy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is called intermittant exotropia. It is among the hardest eye pointing problems to address. Many will suggest surgeries that can make the problem substantially worse. 3D exercises can help (chasing baloons knocking them high into the sky each time they fall... playing catch.) It is common for people with this condition to close one eye in brightly lit situations. Also common, if the person is using their right eye, and you see their left eye is pointing high and far to the left of normal, covering the right eye will frequently make the right eye go immediately high and far to the right as the person shifts to using their left eye.

    4. Re:I'm doubly-lazy! by TuxBeej · · Score: 1

      Very cool. I have the same problem as both of you. I didn't think that I'd ever hear about another person with the same condition.

      IIRC, the condition I have is called "isotropia", which is at odds with the name of the condition that another poster in this thred ("intermittant exotropia"). Maybe I have something different - who knows?

      Anyway, I can also choose which eye to look through. For example, right now I'm using my left to try and peer around my cat who's sitting in the MIDDLE OF MY SCREEN! LAY DOWN! Thank you.

      Makes for a fun trick at parties, though. When I look through the right (my dominant eye), the left eye turns in slightly - vice versa for the left. People will point out that my eyes are just slightly crossed, and so I play "camera 1, camera 2" until they freak out. After all, it's not normal. ^)_(^

      Driving is a bitch, though. I got contacts at 22, making my left eye stronger. I'd already been driving through my right eye since I was 16, so now I had to adjust to everything being shifted around. To imagine what that is like, try covering one eye and walking around a bit until you're fairly used to it, then cover the other eye. And try not to break anything.

      --
      Brendan "Beej" Dery "Only in Canada, eh?"
  42. Dupe! by Rorschach1 · · Score: 3, Funny
    Lazy /. editors! The same article was posted right there in the left-hand column!

    Err, never mind..

  43. nice to have hope! by easytoplease · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i have amblyopia in my left eye and had it treated when i was 4 (am now 24), and there is also some astigmatism. additionally, that eye is far-sighted, while the right eye is near-sighted. it's still not corrected and i wonder sometimes if it ever will be. i cannot do anything with my left eye because it is so weak. i hope that someday this type of treatment will be a viable option as it's really a very annoying problem to have.

  44. my mother by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My mother was an insensitive clod, you insensitive clod!

  45. A variant of this cured MY lazy eye.. by chinobis · · Score: 1

    ...it's called VR pr0n!

    --
    My gallery: www.estiasis.com/modules.php?name=gallery2&g2_item Id=22
  46. You're never too old... by mbessey · · Score: 1

    My lazy eye wasn't diagnosed until I was 18 or so, at which point I was told nothing could be done about it, because I was too old. Once I actually understood the problem, and made an effort to use both eyes on a regular basis, I actually gotr quite a lot better.

    I still have problems with one eye drifting, especially when I'm tired, but I now have stereo vision more often than not. It's pretty cool, actually.

  47. Me, too... by mbessey · · Score: 1

    I was diagnosed at 16 years old or so, and they told me I was too old for treatment. It took me several years of effort, but I finally managed to get to the point where my eyes now focus together more often than not.

    When I was 20, I couldn't read with my left eye closed. Now (at 30), I can. Depth perception is a useful tool folks - don't give up on it without a fight!

  48. It was too late for a full recovery for me... by Eric+Damron · · Score: 1

    I'm glad your treatment went better than mine. A child's eye to brain development doesn't complete itself until between 9 to 11 years of age so you are correct that at age 5 many children can still be helped. But unless it is caught at a VERY early age nothing can be done to bring about a full recovery. The earlier the better.

    --
    The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
  49. It's been done. by TCQuad · · Score: 1

    A quick, effective non-VR solution is already readily available.

  50. lol :) ok ok ok. by WelshieinNZ · · Score: 1

    So I put the letters the wrong way around...Now come on, who here has NEVER done that eh? :)

  51. Gabor wavelets and amblyopia by OGmofo · · Score: 1

    This company has a graphical program that uses Gabor wavelet images to exercise the lazy eye:
    http://www.neuro-vision.com/amblyopia/index.html

    Maybe a VR game that's rich in the right textures and periodically blocks the lazy eye would be more effective than some passive graphical images. Get dopamine (fragging the Gabor wavelet monster = reward) involved and the learning goes faster.

  52. In one exemplary embodiment of this invention... by fragamus · · Score: 1

    They show you Waterworld in your good eye and Debbie Does Dallas in your lazy eye. They bind your hands too lest you go blind altogether.

  53. The end result? by misleb · · Score: 1

    I have amblyopia and I often wonder what the value is in having both eyes work together if one is inferior (and can't be corrected). The brain is ignoring the bad eye for a reason. The images just don't match up. What purpose does it serve to force your brain to match the images up? Is it cosmetic? Does it not reduce the overall quality of vision? Seem to for me.

    -matthew

    --
    "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  54. Insight Into the issue by trefoil · · Score: 1

    What... do you think the insight of the views into this topic are a little skewed?

  55. My optometrist tells me otherwise by Parham · · Score: 1

    My optometrist (well known in my area) told me that the reason why my left eye is lazy is because I have a cornea in my left eye. I've had this in my left eye since childhood. I asked him clearly what could be done, and he said after childhood, you really can't fix a lazy eye. Before childhood, a lazy eye can be trained and improved, but not so in adulthood. My optometrist told me there was nothing wrong with a lazy eye, especially at my age, and that I should just learn to deal with it (and take care of my good eye as much as possible).

    1. Re:My optometrist tells me otherwise by bogd · · Score: 1
      My optometrist (well known in my area) told me that the reason why my left eye is lazy is because I have a cornea in my left eye.

      Something is wrong here... You have a cornea in both eyes (we all do). Did you mean "a defective cornea"?

    2. Re:My optometrist tells me otherwise by Parham · · Score: 1

      I meant to say catarct, my mistake, sorry.

  56. Doctors vs Mechanics by M0b1u5 · · Score: 1

    You are an idiot. Of course you can ask for your money back if a mechanic mucks up trying to fix your car. The analogy you draw is perfect, because it highlights the EXACT reason why you can't get your money back from a doctor. Here's why.

    1) EVERY car of the same model is IDENTICAL and they ALL come with the SAME WORKSHOP MANUAL.

    So, what fixes a broken bulb in a headlight in one car, will fix the exact same issue in a car of the same model and year. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.

    2) EVERY person is DIFFERENT and we do NOT come with a "Workshop Manual".

    What might repair Person A's eyesight problem doesn't work for Person B at all, and for Person C it actually makes things worse! What Doctor's can *usually* says is that Treatment X will help Y% of people, do nothing for Z% of people, and hurt S% of people. See?

    This is the exact reason it takes an awful lot longer to become a doctor, than it does to become a mechanic. All a mechanic has to do is learn some basic principles, be able to read a workshop manual and follow instructions. It aint like that for a Doctor. At University you "learn" the "workshop manual" for the majority of people. Unfortunately, even this "generic" manual COMES WITH ENTIRE PAGES WHICH ARE COMPLETELY BLANK!

    I have many physician friends, and to a man (and to a woman) they all wish the same thing: that every person born, comes with their own, customised owners manual, and workshop manual. If they did, being a doctor wouldn't be much harder than being a mechanic. The only difference would be cleaner working conditions, and nicer finger nails.

    --
    How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
    1. Re:Doctors vs Mechanics by RDW · · Score: 1

      'EVERY person is DIFFERENT and we do NOT come with a "Workshop Manual.'

      No, you're right - it has to be ordered separately.

  57. Used to date by MANYplaces84 · · Score: 1

    I used to date a girl with a lazy eye, but I had to break up cause she was always seeing someone on the side.

  58. Not surprising by PhotoGuy · · Score: 1
    I don't see why one should be so skeptical of the claims (other than being skeptical of *any* claim to a certain degree). Targeted training by computer can be incredibly effective. I remember in high school, having to learn huge lists of authors and the books they wrote; it just wouldn't stick with me. So I wrote a little program on my Z-80 box, that quizzed me, focusing heavily upon the ones I had trouble with. It was amazing how such a simple tool, that focused upon my mental weaknesses, kicked me into shape. I was a whiz with the lists in no time.

    I wouldn't be surprised at all that a computer driven tool that focuses on training a lazy eye, could be many magnitudes more efficient that more manual training means.

    --
    Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  59. VR Treatment for Lazy Eye by I-BiT · · Score: 1

    This is Richard Eastgate, the researcher interviewed by the BBC in the original article published on the BBC website. To answer ScuttleMonkey's original posting - there are two peer reviewed papers in the latest edition of the journal Eye ( http://www.nature.com/eye/index.html ). They can be found as follows - http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v20/n3/full/6701 882a.html http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v20/n3/full/6701 882a.html I think the links work for non subscribers, but I can't be sure. Richard

    1. Re:VR Treatment for Lazy Eye by I-BiT · · Score: 1

      The third link should be http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v20/n3/full/6701 883a.html Richard

    2. Re:VR Treatment for Lazy Eye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for the links. Will try them again at the university - they don't work for non-subscribers.

      Can you tell us just two things though while you're here?

      - Were your results with children only or adults too?

      - May I try it out??

      Thank you!

      And thanks for your work. Lazy eye sucks. My students never know who I'm calling on! (h'mm, maybe useful during tests though, since they're never certain just who I'm looking at... hah.)

  60. Ralph Wiggum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then the doctor told me BOTH eyes were lazy. And that's why it was the best summer ever.

  61. or, get it fixed for free. by geekylinuxkid · · Score: 1

    i got my lazy eye fixed for free compliments of your tax dollars. im in the miliary. took a little while to make sure my eye wasnt getting any worse and then they went in for hte surgery. it took 30 mins to correct.

    and to think... i waited 22 years for good vision. ... now if i could just get down to ft hood to get my vision corrected, again for free. :D