Neues, nicht-invasives, personalisiertes und adaptive Training zur Verbesserung der visuellen Leistungsfähigkeit bei Retinitis Pigmentosa.
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
This project aims to develop and evaluate a virtual reality (VR)-based gaze training software for people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a condition that causes loss of the outer Field of View ("tunnel vision”). The intention is that the software will improve their visual and navigation abilities in real-world settings. The advantages of using VR for this type of training include increased screen angles and the ability to include head rotations in exercises, providing a more immersive and realistic experience. Using wireless, standalone VR headsets with built-in eye tracking also allows for easy and unsupervised training that can be done from home, while eye movements can still be tracked for later evaluation and real-time feedback to the patients. Three studies were carried out as part of this project. The first study aimed to evaluate the effect of specific eye movement patterns ("Systematic Scanning Patterns”) on visual task performance in a virtual environment for individuals with simulated tunnel vision (n=9) to assess whether implementation of such a pattern could benefit the gaze training. It was found that one of the tested patterns could improve participants' performance in obstacle avoidance and visual field coverage in a virtual parkour, which came with the cost of reduced movement speed. The second study aimed to test the effectiveness of VR gaze training software in improving visual and navigation performance for retinitis pigmentosa patients (n=8). The training was developed as part of this project and consists of three visual tasks designed to encourage large and frequent eye movements. It runs on a stand-alone VR headset which patients used for a four-week, 30-minute-per-day training phase from home. Patients were introduced to the Systematic Scanning Pattern found to be most effective in the previous study and received automated feedback during the training. An obstacle parkour was set up to test the effects of the training in a real-world setting by comparing visual and navigation performance in the parkour before and after training. For control, each patient was also tested in the parkour before and after a no-training phase. The training was found to significantly increase the average movement speed and reduce the number of collisions of patients in the parkour, and patients displayed an increase in their "Dynamic Field of View”, meaning the area that is covered by their remaining visual field over a certain amount of time. However, it was found that participants did not adapt to the suggested scanning pattern, indicating that the positive effects found for the training are unrelated to it. The third study aimed to compare the visual performance and gaze behavior of patients with retinitis pigmentosa with that of visually healthy participants with simulated tunnel vision in a virtual environment to find whether such simulation in VR could help increase study populations and test groups for this and similar training setups. The second group of visually healthy participants was recruited and matched with patients based on age and VR experience. The participants then carried out the VR gaze training over the course of four weeks, using a simulated limited field of view. The study results are currently being evaluated and will be released shortly. The results of the developed VR gaze training are promising and suggest that the training has the potential to be a viable option for people living with RP to improve their visual and navigation performance. The software and the applied VR device are intuitive enough to be used at home with no supervision and very little introduction time, further suggesting the general applicability of VR training for the visually impaired.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Influence of Systematic Gaze Patterns in Navigation and Search Tasks with Simulated Retinitis Pigmentosa. Brain Sciences, 11(2), 223.
Neugebauer, Alexander; Stingl, Katarina; Ivanov, Iliya & Wahl, Siegfried
