Binocular iPad games improve childhood amblyopia

Krista Kelly

Binocular games and movies that rebalance contrast are a promising option for treating amblyopia, according to research from Krista R. Kelly, PhD, and colleagues presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

“Our findings show that in addition to improving visual acuity, binocular treatment was successful at improving binocular outcomes in amblyopic children,” Kelly said in an interview with Primary Care Optometry News.

During a two-week period, 42 amblyopic children played an iPad game or watched six movies, for about 10 hours of total treatment time, she said.

“Children wore glasses that separate the images between the eyes, and they need to see each eye’s image to play the game or watch the movie,” Kelly said.

Another group of 22 amblyopic children were patched for 28 hours during the 2-week period.

The mean best corrected visual acuity improved by nearly 1.5 lines with binocular treatment and 0.7 lines with patching.

“Further, binocular treatment improved stereoacuity and reduced the extent and depth of interocular suppression,” Kelly added. “While patching did reduce the depth of interocular suppression, stereopsis and extent of suppression did not improve,” Kelly added. – by Abigail Sutton

Reference:

Kelly KR, et al. Binocular outcomes following binocular treatment for childhood amblyopia. Presented at: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology; Baltimore; May 7–11, 2017.

Disclosures: The researchers reported no financial disclosures.