An Optically Augmented Visual Aid for Individuals with Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Abstract

Normal vision is a precious gift to mankind. Any vision defect or degradation is actually an intimidating problem for individuals and societies. Therefore, researchers are continually working to find effective solutions for vision disorders. In some retinal diseases such as Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), visual aids are required to improve vision ability and/or stop the progress of the disease. Recently, augmented vision techniques have been used to provide aid to people suffering from retinal impairment. However, in such techniques, the images of real scenes are electronically deformed to compensate for vision impairment. Therefore, the natural scene is displayed as an electronic image on glasses. Intuitively, it is annoying to the patient to see electronic rather than natural scenes. Moreover, these visual aids are bulky and produce electric fields that might be harmful with continuous use. In this work, a novel optical solution to provide a visual aid to patients with central vision loss has been proposed. The proposed optical solution deforms the wavefront of the scene to entirely fall on the healthy parts of the retina. This, in turn, conveys all scene information to the brain to be perceived by the patient. As it provides optical processing, the proposed solution overcomes all drawbacks of the electronic solutions. To prove the validity of the proposed solution, three lenses were designed, fabricated, and tested to visualize simple shapes, reading, and obtaining aid during walking and driving. Obtaining the expected results from these tests, they were tried by three volunteers to clinically prove the validity and feasibility of the proposed optical aid. The feedback from the three patients was promising since all of them could recognize some of the details they used to miss with at least one of the lenses.