With the help of a smartphone, the IrisVision Virtual Reality headset is helping patients who suffer from macular degeneration to be able to enjoy daily tasks.
Macular degeneration, causes blurred or no vision in the center of the patient's visual field making it difficult to distinguish faces, drive and read.
The person wears a Virtual Reality headset which holds a smartphone. The person's surroundings are recorded by the phone and displayed in real time in the person's peripheral vision. Using the headset, the user can magnify the images as much as needed, which eliminates the blind spot in the central vision. The headset has the flexibility of switching from close-up objects, such as book, to faraway objects without the need of manually adjusting the magnification.
A small study involving 30 participants who used Irisvision for two weeks found that improved their vision while wearing it to 20/30. Currentily the IrisVision is being used in 80 ophthalmology centers around the United States but it does come with a steep price tag of $2,500 which includes the Samsung Gear Virtual Reality headset plus a Samsung Galaxy S7 or S8 smartphone.*
Doctor-formulated AREDS 2 for Macular Degeneration
