VR Treatment For Lazy Eye In Children Gets FDA Approval (theverge.com) 11
The Food and Drug Administration approved a virtual reality-based treatment for children with the visual disorder amblyopia, or lazy eye, the company behind the therapy announced today. The Verge reports: Luminopia's approach uses TV and movies to develop the weaker eye and train the eyes to work together. Patients watch the show or movie through a headset that shows the images to each eye separately. The images shown to the stronger eye have a lower contrast, and the images are presented with overlays that force the brain to use both eyes to see them properly. Kids using the therapy and wearing glasses had more improvement in their vision than a similar group of kids who did not use the therapy and just wore corrective glasses full time during a clinical trial of the technology. After 12 weeks watching the shows one hour per day, six days per week, 62 percent of kids using the treatment had a strong improvement in their vision. Only around a third of the kids in the comparison group had similar improvements over the course of the 12 weeks.
Luminopia has over 700 hours of programming in its library, and it partnered with kids' content distributors like Nelvana and Sesame Workshop to develop the tool. The authors of the clinical trial wrote that they think that the option to pick popular videos might be one reason users stuck to the program -- people followed the treatment plan 88 percent of the time. Less than 50 percent of patients stick to eye patches or blurring drops. With the approval, Luminopia joins only a handful of companies with clearance to offer a digital therapeutic as a prescription treatment for medical conditions. Last year, the FDA approved a prescription video game called EndeavorRx, which treats ADHD in kids between eight and 12 years old. Luminopia said in a statement that it plans to launch the treatment in 2022.
Luminopia has over 700 hours of programming in its library, and it partnered with kids' content distributors like Nelvana and Sesame Workshop to develop the tool. The authors of the clinical trial wrote that they think that the option to pick popular videos might be one reason users stuck to the program -- people followed the treatment plan 88 percent of the time. Less than 50 percent of patients stick to eye patches or blurring drops. With the approval, Luminopia joins only a handful of companies with clearance to offer a digital therapeutic as a prescription treatment for medical conditions. Last year, the FDA approved a prescription video game called EndeavorRx, which treats ADHD in kids between eight and 12 years old. Luminopia said in a statement that it plans to launch the treatment in 2022.
Come On, Science (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
They eyes aren't lazy, they're just energy challenged.
Both eyes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
just get an Xbox. (Score:4, Interesting)
The short summary version of strabismus is that if something is wrong with vision at birth which prevents stereo vision, such as a large refractive error in one eye, cataract or mis-aligned eyes, then that prevents binocular fusion and results in the visual cortex not developing correctly during the critical period when neuronal circuits, like ocular dominance columns, are trying to calibrate themselves to the optical geometry. There is a classical experiment involving suturing kittens eyes shut during the critical period of maturation, then removing the sutures and testing visual function. Cats never regain full function if they are deprived of vision during the critical period. That critical period is a specific day after birth and only visual cortex, so clearly a biologically-programmed calibration step.
It was always believed that unless vision was restored in both eyes early, before patients matured out of plasticity, then that window for development had been lost and complete visual function could never be regained. The huge new breakthrough is that 100% of visual function can be regained in adulthood by playing first-person shooters. [berkeley.edu]
Can we do this at home? (Score:2)
Are the videos actually stereo, or are they just altered so that one image is missing parts and the other eye has to fill-in? I ask because if this doesn't require stereo source material, then we could do the same thing with a Google cardboard [google.com] and some software to generate a video. The article shows s a picture of what the images look like, but I can't tell if the images are true stereo or not from the tiny image.
Lazy Children Gets VR Treatment For FDA App? (Score:1)