NovaVision: vision restoration therapy

Abstract

In clinical practice NovaVision's therapy should not currently gain acceptance in view of unacceptable perimetric standards and equivocal results. Possible effects on a relative scotoma at the edge of a lesion have not been adequately explored. In the interim, research should also be focused on compensatory eye movement strategies.

Comparing explorative saccade and flicker training in hemianopia

“…Therefore, convincing evidence is still lacking that visual stimulation of the blind hemifield leads to restitution of the occipital cortex in a clinically relevant way. 5,6,13,27,29,30 Because in both groups disease duration exceeded 6 months while dissociations in post-training performance occurred in the EST group compared with the FT group, spontaneous recovery is unlikely to account for the present findings. The groups were uniform and did not differ with respect to essential patient characteristics.…”

Rehabilitation of hemianopia

“…The arguments over the effectiveness of and mechanisms behind these apparent visual field improvements have been rehearsed elsewhere and largely centre on whether gains at the border of damaged vision are due to 'Activat[ion of] surviving neurons in areas of residual vision.' [32], or are instead the result of undetected eye movements into the blindfield [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. One important thread in the discussions is that in the initial VRT experiments, visual field improvement was measured using the same machine that delivered the therapy [31,34]; a potential bias that some more recent studies appear not to have heeded [30].…”

Are Vision-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaires Important in Assessing Rehabilitation for Patients With Hemianopia Post Stroke?

“…10 This method involves the stimulation of the 'borderzone' or 'transition zone' between the area of visual loss and the intact area of vision. 11 The efficacy of these approaches is inconclusive mainly due to a lack of larger scale randomized controlled trials.…”