Evaluation of the role of videogames as active vision therapy in treatment of amblyopia

Purpose: To evaluate the role of monocular videogames as active vision therapy in treatment of amblyopia

Materials and methods: Children between the age group of 6-14 years with anisometropic amblyopia (n=68) with BCVA (Best corrected visual acuity) in the amblyopic eye being >6/36 and <6/12 with no manifest squint were recruited. They were randomly allocated into two groups. One group received 6 hours/day of occlusion therapy (group 1) and the other received 1 hour/day of videogame play for initial one month along with 6 hours/day occlusion therapy (group 2) . Patients were evaluated at baseline, 1 month and 3 months with BCVA, stereoacuity and contrast senstivity.

Results: BCVA improved from 0.61+/-0.12 logMAR at baseline to 0.51+/- 0.14 logMAR at 1 month (p-value=0.001) and 0.40+/- 0.15 logMAR at 3 months (p-value=0.001) in group 1 .In group 2 the BCVA improved from a baseline of 0.65+/-0.09 logMAR to 0.60 +/- 0.10 logMAR at 1 month (p-value=0.001) and 0.48+/-0.10 logMAR (p-value=0.001) at 3 months. With in the younger age group (6-<10 years) improvement in visual acuity was better in group 1 at both time points. In older age group improvement in visual acuity was more in group 1 as compared to group 2 at 1 month.

Conclusion: Videogame play along with occlusion therapy has an advantage in visual recovery in amblyopia.