Design and Development of a Virtual-Reality Based System for Improving Vision in Children with Amblyopia

Amblyopia, commonly known as ‘lazy eye’, is traditionally treated in children by wearing an adhesive patch over the non-amblyopic eye for several hours a day, over a period of many months. A novel treatment method, involving interactive game-play and watching a movie clip presented within a virtual television, has been used to offer a specially developed binocular stimulus to the child. This is achieved by using adapted virtual reality (VR). Uniquely the child has both eyes open for the treatment; there is no covering of the non-amblyopic eye, as per traditional treatments. Preliminary studies indicate positive vision improvement and adaptation of this technology offers potential for a wider range of applications in vision assessment and treatment. This chapter describes the nature of amblyopia and conventional treatment, presents a rationale for application of VR technology to provide a novel treatment method, describes design and development of the I-BiT® system for treatment of amblyopia, and summarises treatment case studies to date.