Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OptiVisT (European Training and Research Program in Translational Vision Science to ensure Optimal support of Visually Impaired Individuals through Tests and Tools of Functional Vision)
Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2023-02-28
In Europe, more than 20 million adults and children are living with a vision impairment. OptiVisT is about enabling each of them, regardless of their visual capacities, to reach their full potential in life by providing better insight into their functional vision. This means focusing on what they can achieve, rather than on the problems. Currently, the tests used to assess their vision have primarily been designed by and for ophthalmologists, primarily for setting diagnosis. As a result, these tests give good insight into visual limitations but do provide little information on what people can actually do with their vision in their everyday life. Our aim is to resolve this by: 1) understanding the visual demands of complex activities of daily living; 2) designing objective, inclusive and engaging tools to predict, train and augment functional vision; and 3) evaluate the effectiveness of such new tools in medical, rehabilitation and classification practice.
To achieve these goals, the early stage researchers (ESRs) involved in OptiVisT have participated in training to become research experts and undertake innovative research studies. Below, we indicate the progress per ESR.
ESR1 [UMCG] has developed a novel method for determining the size and quality of someone’s visual field based on eye-movements made while watching video clips. The results provide the basis for a new method to assess the visual field that is much more suitable for testing children and very old people, from whom current tests are often much too demanding.
ESR2 [OVGU] has performed a first study to measure visual acuity using electric brain signals and compared this to measurements done using a regular vision chart. The results showed that the highest visual acuity was obtained using the new method. This opens up this approach for use in children.
ESR3 [VU] has used mobile eye tracking to determine where people look when climbing a staircase. Stair climbing was chosen because it is a fairly complex, yet common daily life task in which gaze is not dictated by the task but clearly is important. This works has given insight into the functional vision demands of this task and has been published (10.1167/jov.23.1.7)
ESR4 [PRC] has used machine learning to reveal task-relevant patterns and features in gaze-data. In particular, the new method extracts temporal features from gaze-data.
ESR5 [UMCG] did a questionnaire study that revealed that glaucoma patients have a number of problems with daily living activities. Several of these difficulties are related to defects in their binocular visual fields. Furthermore, defects that affect different parts of the visual field in the two eyes were also important and associated with difficulties in mobility-related activities.
ESR6 [IIT] has used principles from audio-visual integration to develop various preliminary tools to assess the central scotoma of visually impaired patients using sound. This opens up new ways to assess vision using intuitive methods.
ESR7 [OVGU] has used a navigation task in virtual reality to study the locomotion of glaucoma patients. The results showed that functional vision capacities of the patients affected the time it took them to complete the navigation task. At the same time, they performed the task equally well to control participants. This is good news, as it indicates that given ample time, patients may compensate for their vision defects.
ESR8 [UMCG] has designed a new method to assess peripheral visual crowding using continuous eye movements. She could show that the new test is much faster than conventional methods. This opens up ways to assess crowding in clinical and rehabilitation practice.
ESR9 [CITY] has analyzed a large amount of visual field data from English glaucoma clinics to find that socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with glaucoma severity at presentation to hospital eye services. However, visual field defect progression during follow-up was not associated with SES. This indicates that once detected, glaucoma care is equally good for everyone in England.
ESR10 [FS] built the first prototype for a device for automated tactile guidance. In a first experiment, the device was used to compare tactile and auditory instruction-based grasp guidance.
ESR11 [CITY] examined whether the visual field of glaucoma patients that just started treatment might improve. Unfortunately, glaucoma patients who received intraocular pressure treatment did not have more visual field improvement than those who received a placebo.
ESR12 [IPC] has done a survey to compare various approaches for tracking the eye movements of people with vision impairment. The survey evaluates the test, the equipment used, the ocular conditions examined and the relative success of each approach. This has provided insight into how to use eye-tracking to create an optimal test of the functional vision of athletes with a vision impairment.
ESR13 [VI] has designed an automated machine-learning-based method for categorizing eye-movement and gaze events made during natural tasks such as walking, sports or searching for an object. Test results show that the new method accurately replicates labels assigned by human labelers. This opens up ways to apply this approach for evaluating gaze in rehabilitation settings.
ESR14 [VI] has analyzed vision test data obtained in children with a cerebral vision impairment (CVI; developmental age 3-18 yrs) to classify their CVI. The analysis indicated distinct groups of children with CVI that are associated with subtle characteristics, low level defects, high functioning, or severe defects. The study also showed that an extended test battery resulted in more relevant CVI subtypes than a more limited test battery. Thus, it is worthwhile to perform more functional vision measurements in these children.
ESR15 [RegionH] has done a survey to compare current methods for examining the visual fields in children. Furthermore, she has been assessing and optimizing various new eye tracking-based approaches for use in children.
ESR1 [UMCG] has developed a novel method for determining the size and quality of someone’s visual field based on eye-movements made while watching video clips. The results provide the basis for a new method to assess the visual field that is much more suitable for testing children and very old people, from whom current tests are often much too demanding.
ESR2 [OVGU] has performed a first study to measure visual acuity using electric brain signals and compared this to measurements done using a regular vision chart. The results showed that the highest visual acuity was obtained using the new method. This opens up this approach for use in children.
ESR3 [VU] has used mobile eye tracking to determine where people look when climbing a staircase. Stair climbing was chosen because it is a fairly complex, yet common daily life task in which gaze is not dictated by the task but clearly is important. This works has given insight into the functional vision demands of this task and has been published (10.1167/jov.23.1.7)
ESR4 [PRC] has used machine learning to reveal task-relevant patterns and features in gaze-data. In particular, the new method extracts temporal features from gaze-data.
ESR5 [UMCG] did a questionnaire study that revealed that glaucoma patients have a number of problems with daily living activities. Several of these difficulties are related to defects in their binocular visual fields. Furthermore, defects that affect different parts of the visual field in the two eyes were also important and associated with difficulties in mobility-related activities.
ESR6 [IIT] has used principles from audio-visual integration to develop various preliminary tools to assess the central scotoma of visually impaired patients using sound. This opens up new ways to assess vision using intuitive methods.
ESR7 [OVGU] has used a navigation task in virtual reality to study the locomotion of glaucoma patients. The results showed that functional vision capacities of the patients affected the time it took them to complete the navigation task. At the same time, they performed the task equally well to control participants. This is good news, as it indicates that given ample time, patients may compensate for their vision defects.
ESR8 [UMCG] has designed a new method to assess peripheral visual crowding using continuous eye movements. She could show that the new test is much faster than conventional methods. This opens up ways to assess crowding in clinical and rehabilitation practice.
ESR9 [CITY] has analyzed a large amount of visual field data from English glaucoma clinics to find that socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with glaucoma severity at presentation to hospital eye services. However, visual field defect progression during follow-up was not associated with SES. This indicates that once detected, glaucoma care is equally good for everyone in England.
ESR10 [FS] built the first prototype for a device for automated tactile guidance. In a first experiment, the device was used to compare tactile and auditory instruction-based grasp guidance.
ESR11 [CITY] examined whether the visual field of glaucoma patients that just started treatment might improve. Unfortunately, glaucoma patients who received intraocular pressure treatment did not have more visual field improvement than those who received a placebo.
ESR12 [IPC] has done a survey to compare various approaches for tracking the eye movements of people with vision impairment. The survey evaluates the test, the equipment used, the ocular conditions examined and the relative success of each approach. This has provided insight into how to use eye-tracking to create an optimal test of the functional vision of athletes with a vision impairment.
ESR13 [VI] has designed an automated machine-learning-based method for categorizing eye-movement and gaze events made during natural tasks such as walking, sports or searching for an object. Test results show that the new method accurately replicates labels assigned by human labelers. This opens up ways to apply this approach for evaluating gaze in rehabilitation settings.
ESR14 [VI] has analyzed vision test data obtained in children with a cerebral vision impairment (CVI; developmental age 3-18 yrs) to classify their CVI. The analysis indicated distinct groups of children with CVI that are associated with subtle characteristics, low level defects, high functioning, or severe defects. The study also showed that an extended test battery resulted in more relevant CVI subtypes than a more limited test battery. Thus, it is worthwhile to perform more functional vision measurements in these children.
ESR15 [RegionH] has done a survey to compare current methods for examining the visual fields in children. Furthermore, she has been assessing and optimizing various new eye tracking-based approaches for use in children.
Thus far, we have designed various new tools to evaluate and quantify functional vision abilities in children, athletes, glaucoma patients and elderly. These new tools aim to make vision assessment more engaging, intuitive and simple, with the ultimate goal of improving current rehabilitation and diagnostic strategies. The new tools, which often involve the recording and analysis of eye-movements, have been evaluated and compared to existing approaches. To evaluate the new tools in practice, they are being used in the assessment of sport-relevant vision for impairment classification, improving the diagnosis of children with CVI and elderly with glaucoma and improving the vision assessment of children recovering from CNS tumors, ensuring optimal follow-up, health equality, and people being able to reach their full potential in life and society.