TY - GEN
T1 - Assistive peripheral prosthetic vision AIDS perception and mobility in outdoor environments
T2 - 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2015
AU - Zapf, Marc Patrick H.
AU - Boon, Mei Ying
AU - Lovell, Nigel H.
AU - Suaning, Gregg J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 IEEE.
Copyright:
Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/11/4
Y1 - 2015/11/4
N2 - Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) causes visual field (VF) constriction due to progressive loss of photoreceptors, typically from the retinal periphery to the fovea. Retinal prostheses offer vision restoration via electrode implantation and stimulation near the fovea, thereby eliciting articifial percepts, so-called phosphenes in the center VF. Although foveal photoreceptors can persist for prolonged periods of time, bionic therapy is usually restricted to stages of RP with complete vision loss. However, persons with RP experience mobility impairment from peripherally restricted VFs much earlier. Consequently, the amount of visual scanning necessary for navigation is increased, and maintaining a steady pace is challenging. Receiving a retinal implant at this early stage might be feasible. We investigated the potential of a peripheral visual prosthesis coexisting with central residual vision to facilitate scene perception and mobility. Simulating prosthetic and residual vision in a virtual mobility environment, we found that assistive phosphene layouts were associated with reductions in visual scanning-related head movements of up to 42.1%, body rotations of up to 30%, and up to 45% lower frequency of stopping when circumventing low-lying obstacles, pedestrians and following a path. Further research on early implantation of retinal prostheses for the peripheral VF is therefore advised.
AB - Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) causes visual field (VF) constriction due to progressive loss of photoreceptors, typically from the retinal periphery to the fovea. Retinal prostheses offer vision restoration via electrode implantation and stimulation near the fovea, thereby eliciting articifial percepts, so-called phosphenes in the center VF. Although foveal photoreceptors can persist for prolonged periods of time, bionic therapy is usually restricted to stages of RP with complete vision loss. However, persons with RP experience mobility impairment from peripherally restricted VFs much earlier. Consequently, the amount of visual scanning necessary for navigation is increased, and maintaining a steady pace is challenging. Receiving a retinal implant at this early stage might be feasible. We investigated the potential of a peripheral visual prosthesis coexisting with central residual vision to facilitate scene perception and mobility. Simulating prosthetic and residual vision in a virtual mobility environment, we found that assistive phosphene layouts were associated with reductions in visual scanning-related head movements of up to 42.1%, body rotations of up to 30%, and up to 45% lower frequency of stopping when circumventing low-lying obstacles, pedestrians and following a path. Further research on early implantation of retinal prostheses for the peripheral VF is therefore advised.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84953283005&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/3c449e6e-7af0-33c2-bb99-cf8b3af822c6/
U2 - 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7318689
DO - 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7318689
M3 - Conference contribution
C2 - 26736589
AN - SCOPUS:84953283005
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS
SP - 1638
EP - 1641
BT - 2015 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2015
A2 - Cerutti , Sergio
A2 - Bonato, Paolo
A2 - Lovell, Nigel
A2 - Mainardi, Luca T
PB - IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
CY - United States
Y2 - 25 August 2015 through 29 August 2015
ER -