Software Helps Stroke Patients Improve Eye Movements

A novel saccadic therapy program helps train stroke patients to make the most of their remaining vision.

The NeuroEyeCoach saccadic eye training therapy is offered via the Internet directly to patients sitting at their home computer, and is designed to provide meaningful improvement in visual search performance, resulting in improvements in navigation skills and object finding, and increase the efficiency of a patient's eye movement and re-train the patient's ability to make most of their remaining vision. The program is intuitive and user friendly, and has been designed not to be overly taxing and can be completed in 2-4 weeks.

At the NeuroEyeCoach Website information can be found on the therapy and patients can register and download the program; the therapy program can also be provided as a clinic-based multiuser device. The device will enable healthcare professionals to provide the therapy to patients under supervision, and alternatively, clinics can use the device to enable patients to try out the therapy while in the clinic. Patients can then be referred for completion of the NeuroEyeCoach therapy at home. The NeuroEyeCoach saccadic eye training therapy is a product of NovaVision (Boca Raton, FL, USA), a division of Vycor Medical (Boca Raton, FL, USA).

NovaVision also markets a noninvasive, computer-based light stimulation therapy called Vision Restoration Therapy (VRT), which provides partial restoration of the patient's lost visual field. The two therapies address different visual disabilities, each of which results from neurological damage-induced vision loss, a loss of visual field as well as difficulty with eye movement, affecting the ability to integrate visual information. NeuroEyeCoach has been specifically developed to increase the efficiency of eye movement and re-train the patients' ability to integrate visual information between the left and right hand side.

“NeuroEyeCoach has been designed and developed to meaningfully improve a patient's ability to scan their environment, resulting in a very positive impact on their ability to deal with everyday living,” said David Cantor, President of Vycor. “The therapy addresses a very substantial and under-served market. We believe there are literally millions of people worldwide who could benefit from this therapy.”

NovaVision is in parallel actively working on re-engineering its VRT to also enable it for “direct to the patient” Internet delivery and to streamline a number of business processes related to the delivery and servicing of patients, although the therapy itself will remain unchanged. Once completed, the company plans to offer both NeuroEyeCoach and VRT alongside each other in one therapy suite creating a robust, affordable, web-based visual therapy solution targeted at neurologically induced vision loss.

Saccades are quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction, serving as a mechanism for fixation, rapid eye movement (REM), and the fast phase of optokinetic nystagmus (involuntary eye movements). They are initiated cortically by the frontal eye fields, or subcortically by the superior colliculus.

Related Links:
NeuroEyeCoach therapy website
NovaVision
Vycor Medical