Different Perspectives

We can never truly see the world through anyone else’s eyes, but a new tool might help people understand what it looks like to those with glaucoma. Glaucoma is a group of conditions that damage the optic nerve and cause vision loss over time, typically starting with the peripheral areas. This experience is often represented by dark areas around the edges of sight (bottom left), but this is regarded as unrealistic by patients. A new study gave healthy subjects a more accurate experience, by tracking their eye movement in a virtual reality headset and creating a blurred area of vision (bottom right) according to a map of vision based on a real patient (top right). The participants then got a sense of everyday life by completing basic tasks. Simulations like this may help those designing accessible buildings, transport systems, and tools to help patients navigate the world.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image adapted from work by Pete R. Jones and colleagues
• Division of Optometry and Visual Science, School of Health Science, City, University of London, London, UK
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in npj Digital Medicine, March 2020