Recently published research found good results for new evolutions in Amblyopia therapy.
Amblyopia is a neuro-developmental disorder resulting from abnormal visual experience early in life, characterized by reduced vision in one eye despite it being a normal healthy eye. There is typically a difference in Visual Acuity of more than 2 lines on the letter chart between the two eyes.
It is the most common cause of visual impairment in children, affecting about 3% of the population.
It can be treated.
Treatment is typically based on providing different visual inputs to each eye, the brain being thereby stimulated to lessen the inhibition of the suppressed eye and so improve binocular functions, ideally with improvement to stereo (3-D) vision.
This Randomized Controlled Trial used Digital technology in a Virtual Reality-type headset called Luminopia One to present each eye with different information to treat Amblyopia (Blunt vision).
One hundred patients of 4 to 8 years age with unilateral amblyopia and used the device for 1 hour per day, 6 days per week, for 12 weeks while wearing full refractive correction.
The treated participants had a clinically significant improvement in Visual Acuity; approximately 1.8 line on the letter chart, with good patient acceptance and patient satisfaction.
All therapy involves work for all concerned - there is no "quick fix".
We use simpler traditional, but similar, types of therapy here at VisionLink which also get good results.
We typically use Red/ Green or Polarized over-glasses on physical/tactile or computer-based resources to achieve a similar separation between what each eye sees.
With our in-house support, and use of "Real Space" oriented Optometric Vision Therapy we get good results with better prospects for retention of gains made.
Citation;
Ophthalmology 2021 Sep 14; Randomized Controlled Trial of a Dichoptic Digital Therapeutic for Amblyopia, S Xiao, E Angjeli, HC Wu, ED Gaier, S Gomez, DA Travers, G Binenbaum, R Langer, DG Hunter, MX Repka
