iPhone App Helps Delay Need for Reading Glasses

Software released for iPhones and based on the work of a research team at Tel Aviv University in Israel can help middle-age eyes delay their need for reading glasses. The research, led by Uri Polat, a professor at the university’s medical school, addresses presbyopia, a condition where  near vision deteriorates because eyes cannot focus as before, and the image processed by the visual cortex of the brain is blurred.

The condition is usually overcome with reading glasses or corrective surgery, which make it easier for the neurons to bypass blurry parts of the image, such as small fonts. An alternative therapy to reading glasses or surgery, however, is to enhance the speed and quality of processing in the brain, to overcome the blurry images by sheer processing power.

Polat’s solution is to improve the processing performance of the brain’s visual cortex. Polat co-founded Ucansi (pronounced you-can-see), a company in the U.S. with an R&D facility in Israel, to develop software based on his research and marketed under the name GlassesOff that helps train the brain to better process visual images.

The GlassesOff software trains the brain to translate the normal blurry images encountered by people with presbyopia into clear images. The application displays groups of blurry lines called Gabor patches at several points across the screen, and the user must identify when a patch appears in the center. Polat’s team described the technology in September at a meeting of the Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society in San Francisco.

The company reports its clinical testing shows 70 percent people who used the software were significantly better able to reduce their “eye-age” by seven or more years. More than 40 percent reduced their eye age by 10 or more years.

Using the software, says the company, enabled 90 percent of trial participants who identified the inability to read text for long periods of time to regain their ability to read for hours without the need to use reading glasses. Trial participants in all age groups — mid-40s and up — experienced benefits from the software, although the older participants took longer than their younger counterparts.

According to the New Scientist, Ucansi will release GlassesOff for the iPhone early next year and is expected to cost $95.00. The company says it is producing PC and tablet versions of the software as well.

Read more: Smartphone App Gives Voice to Those Who Cannot Speak

Photo: Paleontour/Flickr

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