VR Treatment for Lazy Eye

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."

Comments

0o

[ExE122]

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"

This is news?

[Kenja]

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.

Virtual Reality

[BigZaphod]

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

somewhat related company

[outcast36]

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.

Much simpler solution from 30 years ago

[Animats]

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.

As a strabismus sufferer...

[nvrrobx]

...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.

First hand experience.

[Eric Damron]

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.