Medicinal Movies

Lazy eye, or amblyopia, is a vision disorder in which the brain favours use of one eye. Generally diagnosed in childhood, ambylopia’s traditional treatment was to patch the good eye forcing use of the weaker. Recently however improved vision has been achieved with dichoptic treatment: the presentation of two different versions of the same image – one low contrast, one high – to each eye simultaneously. Despite the benefits, many kids don’t use the available dichoptic learning tasks and games because, well, they're boring. Figuring that nothing grabs attention like a good movie, researchers have now converted a bunch of animated features into dichoptic versions. And watching them seems to work: kids’ visual acuity improved. Soon, then, instead of feeling like a chore, treatment may involve breaking out the popcorn, donning a pair of 3D cinema specs (like those worn by the patient, pictured) and settling down for a good film.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Image from the Retina Foundation of the Southwest
• Retina Foundation of the Southwest, Dallas, Texas USA
• Copyright held by original authors
• Research published in Journal of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, October 2015