Hope for People who Suffer from Lazy Eye

Keeping your child healthy is not always easy. Daddies and mommies do everything they can for their little ones, but things happen. Especially when our little darlings are out of the house. While we have them in our sights, we do what we can. We cook or prepare healthy foods, we child-proof our homes when they are learning how to walk. Children have helmets when they are out on their bikes or skateboards. If your child is anything like The Boy, then he or she is a little daredevil and you are dying 1,000 deaths as they practice jumps on their bike, swinging off tree branches, or just tearing around in general, seeing if they have more lives than a cat.

Sometimes, an affliction isn't from reckless disregard. Unfortunately, children are sometimes born with something that will affect their health. You want to do everything you can to make sure your little Miracle of Christ is well. Sometimes the problem requires professional help, and you must seek that.

Take Care of Your Eyes

Eyes are important. We only have one pair, so we have to make sure they are taken care of. These days, children are on screens. It's not just the kids. Shoot, you're looking at a screen right now as I drop my latest bit of knowledge and wisdom. What's important is managing that screen time and making sure eyes are protected so they can continue to help us see when we're reading, driving, watching our miserable little darlings as they test our patience again.

Most people are born with a healthy pair of eyes, but there are cases when people aren't so lucky. Sometimes, a child will have Amblyopia, more commonly known as lazy eye. According to the National Eye Institute, 3% of children have Amblyopia.

Lazy Eye

Dr. Amin Rigi, CEO of Eyesight Electronics in Scotland, estimates lazy eye to affect 100 million people around the world, and, "is expected to double in the next 20 years" according to a press release from Eyesight Electronics. AmblyoFix is a treatment employed by Rigi and his staff designed to help children who are afflicted with lazy eye. The traditional methods of of wearing an eye patch have been known to take years to produce results. Rigi recalled a conversation he had with his father, an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon.

Amin Riji (Photo: eyesightelectronics.com)

"I asked him, 'What eye condition do you see most often that, if solved, could help millions?'" Rigi recalled. The answer was, "Lazy eye."

Rigi's father said he saw several cases every day. Many of those cases were in children, and he felt treatments that could be accessed by everyone were outdated and slow.

Hearing this, Rigi was determined to find a faster, more effective treatment, and in 2019, found Eyesight Electronics with his father. Eyesight Electronics is not just a father-son collaboration, but a larger family affair. Amin's brother contributed to the project while his mother helps in the medical and clinical aspects. His sister joined as an intern and his wife, Safa Murad, handles the marketing.

Patients utilizing AmblyoFix wear 3D glasses while working with digital content on their computer. This allows both eyes to work together. The software adjusts visual output and trains their brain to process images, strengthening the weaker eye. This approach results in faster, better treatment than traditional treatments that are usually abandoned because of monotony and isolation.

Benefits of AmblyoFix

The methods employed by Eyesight Electronics integrate multiple components, including perceptual learning and, "gamification into an interactive, immersive experience." Up to 10 perceptual skills can be activated at the same time in a single task. This enables different regions of the brain to work together, improving visual processing from different regions of the brain working together. AmblyoFix' system strengthens neural pathways and improves perception and object identification.

Perceptual Skills Activated by AmblyoFix

• Visual Sequential Memory. Used for reading and following instructions.
• Visual Discrimination. Used for recognizing objects, faces.
• Visual Closure. Used for incomplete images in daily life (partially obscured signs, objects).

A real-time adaptive difficulty modulation adjusts tasks based on the patient's progress. This accelerates vision recovery and enhances adaptive and structural changes to the brain.

Around half of lazy eye patients who use a patch fail to complete their treatment. VR-based treatments require uncomfortable and expensive headsets. The methods and equipment employed by Amblyofix are relatively more affordable and easier to use. Rigi expects cases in lazy eye to increase dramatically by 2050.

"We're not just improving vision," Rigi insists, "We're improving lives."