Amblyopia is an eye disorder that results in reduced depth vision (3-dimensional vision). This disorder, more commonly known as lazy eye, sets in during childhood, from the youngest age (sometimes before a year) and its treatment consists mainly of re-educating this “lazy” eye by putting a valid mask in front of the eye for several hours a day (this is the treatment by prolonged permanent occlusion) to force the amblyopic eye to work.
Lazy eye is easily treated in children
The earlier this treatment is started, the shorter and more effective it is because we take advantage of the cerebral plasticity of the young child to restore stereoscopic vision. But after 6 years, age when the maturation of the visual pathways is practically that of an adult, it is often considered that functional amblyopia is definitive and incurable.
How about playing Tetris?
But this lack of treatment for adult amblyopia will perhaps be called into question thanks to the development of video games on screens (computers, tablets or smartphones). A new treatment method allows the amblyopic eye to work in coordination with the valid eye, using a video game inspired by good old Tetris but which uses dichoptic vision: that is, each eye sees a different image.
To play, the amblyope is equipped with a pair of anaglyph glasses (3D glasses with a red glass on the left and a blue glass on the right) which allows to play binocularly: one eye sees the falling bricks and the other sees the wall being built at the bottom of the screen. The two eyes each send information to the brain, which forces them to cooperate … and which forces the amblyopic eye to work.
As in young children, this process relies on the plasticity of the brain to recover visual function. In clinical trials, participants (all over the age of 20) who played Tetris in dichoptic presentation showed improvements in spatial vision and poor eye visual acuity.
How’s it going ?
The exercises are to be performed at home, on the computer or on the screen of a tablet, but always under the supervision of your usual ophthalmologist or orthoptist. During training sessions, a series of visual activities and repetitions of images train the brain to improve the processing of visual information.
On the computer, the RevitalVision® program offers software for 40 exercise sessions, of about 30 minutes each, to be done at the rate of 3 sessions per week with tests every 10 sessions to check the results and adjust the exercises. Cost of treatment: 980 euros including tax. Approved by the FDA (the US Federal Food and Drug Control Agency) since 2001, this program reports an average improvement of around 2 / 10th and 100% in contrast sensitivity.
On tablet and smartphone, the application of Amblyogames is announced for the end of this year on GooglePlay and on the AppStore (price not communicated). This game was developed with researchers from McGill University in Canada. To get results, you should play for an hour a day for at least five weeks. For now, a beta version of the game is available on PC.
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