Seeing 20/20 is just one aspect of good vision. Our clinic offers vision training based on current research in neuroplasticity and innovative technology. We were the first clinic in British Columbia and the second in Canada to offer a revolutionary virtual reality vision therapy solution – the innovative Vivid Vision Clinical System, and incorporate it into a treatment protocol that aims at enhancing our patients’ lives.
Vision training is able to help patients with certain types of strabismus, amblyopia (lazy eye), eye coordination problems, and double vision to work and see more efficiently. We can aid in post-concussion rehabilitation and help remediate eye coordination issues, such as convergence insufficiency, that could be hindering performance in daily life. Many of these conditions can affect a person’s ability to read, learn, and work for prolonged periods with digital devices or computer monitors.
Book your appointment to see if you are a candidate for vision training and to experience the groundbreaking system that is changing the way our patients see the world. We can refer and co-manage care with ophthalmologists, neurologists, and neuro-ophthalmologists, providing you with a comprehensive treatment plan, that can give you the best outcome possible.
Research in Vision Training
Amblyopia (commonly known as lazy eye) affects up to 4 percent of the general population. Treatment usually involves patching the dominant eye in attempts to improve the vision in the weaker eye. Patching therapy is often only partially effective. It is more effective during the critical period of visual development prior to the age of approximately 8 years when the visual system demonstrates greater properties of neuroplasticity. Patching is typically not effective in adults.
In 2013, researchers from McGill University published findings in Current Biology showing a fourfold improvement in the lazy eye of adults that played a modified version of a Tetris video game that was viewed with both eyes compared to those that played the same game with the dominant eye patched. In the former scenario, the researchers used a head-mounted device to show participants a high contrast image in the weaker eye, and a lower contrast image in the dominant eye. Since both eyes needed to be used simultaneously in order to play the game, the weaker eye was encouraged to “work” alongside the dominant eye rather than suppress. The researchers concluded that training the visual system with both eyes seemed to increase the neuroplasticity of the visual system in adults and that was not the case with patching therapy.
The instrument allows the doctors to adjust the images seen by the dominant and amblyopic eyes, depending on the severity of the amblyopia at the onset of treatment and as vision improves in the lazy eye. Additional modifications to compensate for eye misalignments can also be made to optimize performance and improve stereovision skills. By allowing the brain to be better able to integrate visual information from the two eyes, coordination and depth perception can be strengthened. The apparatus utilizes a hand-motion detection sensor with the virtual-reality display that allows patients to make simple hand gestures when responding to the visual stimulus during various computerized exercises.
Drs Henry Reis and Cindy Ho are studying patients’ treatment outcomes with this new technology and recently presented on these findings at the 2019 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology conference. Our preliminary evidence shows improvements in both vision and depth perception however further study is needed to elaborate on these findings.
Book an appointment to see if you are a candidate for vision training or would like to participate in our research study.
