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."

Well done!

[Rob T Firefly]

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.

Re:0o

[Dairyland.Net]

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.

Making the treatment sweeter

[mahju]

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.

I've got it

[esemplastic]

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?