When Glenn Calverley first had a stroke, he thought it was just a bad headache. But then his vision changed, and he knew something serious had happened.
A year and a half later, Calverley, now 57, still has major vision problems. He doesn’t see colors well, sees spots that aren’t really there, and has lost parts of his side vision.
If something is on his left side or slightly above eye level, he often misses it completely. He says that if his cat walks into the room, he won’t notice. Sometimes, he bumps into signposts while walking because he can’t see them.
Calverley’s condition is called partial hemianopsia. This is when a person loses half of their field of vision in both eyes. The problem isn’t in the eyes themselves, but in the brain. If the brain’s right side is damaged, for example, the person may lose sight on the left side of both eyes. About 30% of stroke survivors experience some form of vision loss.
Up until now, there haven’t been many good treatments for this condition. People have used prisms in glasses or trained their eyes to move differently, but these methods don’t help everyone. Many people with vision loss after a stroke have to stop working and even walking outside can be risky.
Now, researchers at the University of Alberta have come up with a new solution. They developed special glasses that use mixed reality technology to help people see what they’re missing. The research was published in the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology.
These glasses use a small computer camera to capture video of what’s around the person. The software then moves and shrinks the video so that everything fits into the part of the person’s vision that still works.
Dr. Edsel Ing, who led the project, says this gives people the feeling of seeing the whole world again. He calls the new technique “picture-in-picture navigation.”
Dr. Ing, who has been an eye doctor for over 25 years, says he used to hate telling patients there was nothing he could do. Now, with these mixed reality glasses, he finally has something to offer.
The glasses work with Microsoft’s HoloLens 2, a type of mixed reality headset that costs around 6,000 Canadian dollars. Unlike virtual reality headsets, which block out the real world, these glasses let you see through them while also showing computer images.
The team tested the prototype on five people with hemianopsia. They were asked to walk a 50-meter course with four soft objects placed in their path. Without the glasses, three of the people walked into four obstacles. With the glasses, only one person bumped into one object. Patients rated the glasses an average of 74.3 out of 100 for how helpful they were.
Calverley was one of the test subjects. Since his stroke, he has trained himself to move his head more to make up for what he can’t see. He can no longer drive, but he says he’s adjusting well. He found the new glasses helped him notice more of his surroundings, and during the test, he didn’t hit any of the obstacles.
Dr. Ing worked with computer engineering student Ishaan Roy and Professor Mahdi Tavakoli, as well as ophthalmologists Alberto Galvez Ruiz and Imran Jivraj. They are already thinking about other ways to help people with stroke-related vision problems, including issues like double vision or shaky vision.
Dr. Ing believes that until we can fully repair the brain, it’s important for doctors and computer experts to keep finding new ways to improve life for stroke survivors. These smart glasses are one small step toward a better future for people like Glenn Calverley.
If you care about stroke, please read studies that diets high in flavonoids could help reduce stroke risk, and MIND diet could slow down cognitive decline after stroke.
For more health information, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce the risk of dementia, and tea and coffee may help lower your risk of stroke, dementia.
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