Prism-Containing Glasses Minimize Peripheral Vision Loss

Tuesday, January 3 2017 | 00 h 00 min | Vision Science

New eyewear containing prisms can expand the visual field for patients with partial blindness, reducing collisions with other pedestrians, according research from the the Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard Medical School.

In the paper, recently published in Journal of Vision, the researchers used 42 patients with limited vision from retinitis pigmentosa to test their collision risk model, and found that the risk of collision is highest when objects approach from a 45 degree angle. “This means that any visual-field expanding device will be most effective if it can cover that angle,” explains lead study author Eli Peli, professor of ophthalmology.

Peli’s team is attempting to improve on their designs for visual-field-expanding eyewear, which uses prisms to bend light into still-functioning areas of the eye. These advances would improve vision not only for patients suffering from peripheral vision loss from retinitis pigmentosa, but also patients with hemianopia, Usher syndrome (a rare genetic disorder which results in vision and hearing loss), or advanced glaucoma.

Full paper available at: http://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2592297