A Study to Assess the Feasibility of Utilising Virtual Reality for the Treatment of Accommodative and Vergence...

To assess the feasibility, as well as viability, of utilising gaming using virtual reality (VR) to treat accommodative and vergence infacilities.

Forty-two emmetropic and asymptomatic participants between the ages of 18 and 30, with normal binocular visual function, were selected for the study in 2018. Participants with binocular accommodative infacilities and/or vergence infacilities comprised the study population. The binocular accommodative facilities (BAF) were assessed using amplitude-scaled facilities (probe lens = 30% amplitude of accommodation; test distance = 45% amplitude of accommodation). All those with less than 10 cycles per minute (cpm) were regarded as failing. Vergence facilities were assessed using 12 pd base out and 3 pd base in prisms. All those with less than 15 cpm were regarded as failing. The participants were separated into age-matched experimental and control groups. The experimental group played a fast-paced game using Samsung Gear VR (SM-R323), whilst the control group watched a television film projected onto a two-dimensional screen at a distance of one metre. Pre-test and post-test binocular amplitude-scaled facilities and vergence facilities were measured for both groups after exposure for 25 minutes.

There was a significant, mean increase in binocular accommodative facilities of 4.67 ± 5.05 cpm (p = 0.008) for the experimental group (n = 12). There was a significant mean increase in vergence facilities of 3.72 ± 3.18 cpm (p < 0.001) for the experimental group (n = 32). A statistically significant mean difference of 4.07 cpm (95%CI: 0.97, 9.19; p = 0.03) between the respective control and experimental groups was found for binocular accommodative facilities and 2.45 cpm (95%CI: 0.68, 4.22; p = 0.008) for vergence facilities.

Binocular accommodative facilities and vergence facilities increased after 25 minutes of VR gaming in asymptomatic emmetropic participants with accommodative infacilities and vergence infacilities. However, due to the small-scale, unmasked and unrandomised nature of the study more research is needed to confirm the results of this study.