Treatment Of Anisometropic Amblyopia By Virtual Reality: A Pilot Study

To evaluate the effectiveness of a training plan designed specifically for the improvement of Contrast Sensitivity (CS) in children with anisometropic amblyopia through VR.

Optometric Clinic of the University of Alicante

The training software used was an own training program (Neivatech), specifically designed with the aim of working the CS of the amblyopic eye through the monocular projection of Gabor-type stimuli, in a three-dimensional binocular work environment. The treatment efficacy parameters were VA, CS and stereopsis, comparing the results prior to treatment with the results obtained after 18 training sessions of 30 minutes. Clinical signifficant changes were considered when: an increase in VA in the amblyopic eye of at least 1 logMAR line in far and / or near; a change of at least two steps in the SC test at any of the spatial frequencies evaluated; and a change of at least one step in the stereoscopic vision measured by TNO. 

A total of 4 patients aged between 8 and 14 years were included. All subjects had been previously treated with occlusion and/or conventional vision therapy, and discontinued any previous treatment, at least 2 months prior to inclusion as participants. Regarding the improvement of VA, 50% of patients improved the amblyopic eye by at least 1 logMAR line far and/or near. Regarding CS, 100% of patients improved in some spatial frequency in the amblyopic eye. Regarding stereopsis, 100% of patients improved in at least one step in the TNO test.

The preliminary results obtained suggest that visual training based on perceptual learning through the monocular work of CS in a virtual reality binocular environment could be a viable treatment for the improvement of CS, VA and stereopsis of some patients with anisometropic amblyopia.