A VIRTUAL reality headset has restored sight to people who are legally blind. While it didn’t cure the physical cause of their blindness, the device let people with severe macular degeneration resume activities like reading and gardening – tasks they previously found impossible.
Macular degeneration is a common, age-related condition. It affects around 11 million people in the US and around 600,000 people in the UK. Damage to blood vessels causes the central part of the eye, called the macula, to degrade. This leaves people with a blind spot in the centre of their vision, and can make those with the condition legally blind.
“You can still see with your periphery, but it’s difficult or impossible to recognise people, to read, to perform everyday activities,” says Bob Massof at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.
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The new system, called IrisVision, uses VR to make the most of peripheral vision. The user puts on a VR headset that holds a Samsung Galaxy phone. It records the person’s surroundings and displays them in real time, but the user can magnify the image as many times as they need for their peripheral vision to become clear. Doing so also helps to effectively reduce or eliminate their blind spot.
“Everything around the blind spot looks, say, 10 times bigger, so the relative size of the blind spot looks so much smaller that the brain can’t perceive it anymore,” says Tom Perski at IrisVision, who also has severe macular degeneration.
When he first started using the device it was an emotional experience. “I sensed that I could see again and the tears started coming,” he says.
“If I were to look at my wife – and I’m standing 4 or 5 feet away – my blind spot is so large I can’t see her head at all,” says Perski. But when he uses IrisVision the magnification causes the blind spot to be relatively much smaller, so that it no longer covers his wife’s whole head, just a small part of her face. “If I just move that blind spot I can see her whole face and her expression and everything,” he says.
“People like that it is an all-in-one. They read with it, watch television, see faces of friends and family”
The software also automatically focuses on what the person is looking at, enabling them to go from reading a book on their lap to looking at the distance without adjusting the magnification or zoom manually. Colours are given a boost because many people with macular degeneration have trouble distinguishing them, and users can place a magnification bubble over anything they want to see in even more detail, for example to read small print.
In a trial, 30 people used the system for two weeks, filling out questionnaires on their ability to complete daily activities before and after the period.
“They can now read, they can watch TV, they can interact with people, they can do gardening. They can do stuff that for years was not even a consideration,” says David Rhew at Samsung Electronics Americas.
According to Rhew, the vision of participants was all but restored with the headset. “The baseline rate of vision in the individuals came in at 20/400, which is legally blind, and with the use of this technology it improved to 20/30, which is pretty close to 20/20 vision,” he says.
The results were presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology annual meeting.
The headset is now being used in 80 ophthalmology centres around the US, and the next step is to adapt the software to work for other vision disorders.
Melissa Chun, at the Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, is one of those who has been working with the system. “My patients who have used it like that it is an all-in-one. They read with it, watch television, see faces of friends and family,” says Chun, although some have commented that it is heavy for long periods of use.
Many people with macular degeneration regularly use eight to 10 different tools, such as telescopes and magnifying glasses, to help them with daily life, but IrisVision can replace them all, says Perski.
The system costs $2500, which includes a Samsung Gear VR headset and a Galaxy S7 or S8 smartphone customised with the software.
In previous work, Samsung has used the headset to help treat people with chronic pain using immersive virtual reality experiences such as swimming with blue whales or painting. Some of the participants continued to feel the effects up to 48 hours after they stopped using the device.
“Maybe down the road we may have to create a VR pharmacy, based on different content for different people with difference conditions,” says Rhew.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Vision restored with virtual reality”
