Vision Simulator

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Steve from Eye GIFs

• January 23, 2020 23:46

Allow patients to use their phone camera to simulate conditions like cataracts, ARMD, glaucoma, etc. so they know what to look for.

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  Jim Hutchins, OD, FAAO

  • January 25, 2020 23:37
  • Edited

  Nice idea, but PLEASE don’t do it the (incorrect, very unenlightened) way “all those other guys” have. Don’t put a black blotch in the center of a picture to show what macular degeneration is like-its almost NEVER like that. Don’t put black in a picture where you see black on a visual field of a patient with a visual field defect- that is NOT what the patient sees at all, they seldom have a clue they even have a visual field defect. Instead of showing a picture of 2 little boys playing in a sand pile with the caption “This is what your vision is like when you don’t have glaucoma.” And then beside it, have the same picture with the periphery blacked out (to supposedly demonstrate peripheral visual field loss) with the caption “This is what you’ll see if you have peripheral vision loss from glaucoma.”. That is NOT what a person with glaucoma and peripheral field loss sees at all, but you’ll make the patient think “Well, hell, I’d notice that right away and I’ll run to the doctor!” The right thing to do is to have the 2nd picture look absolutely identical to the 1st picture with the aforementioned caption “This is what you see when you have peripheral vision loss from glaucoma.” The patient will think “Well hell, I can’t tell any difference!” BINGO! THAT’S the problem! It doesn’t have any symptoms!! You won’t have a clue you have any vision loss with glaucoma (I’ve seen people with end stage glaucoma -that was undiagnosed-that still weren’t even beginning to suspect they had a problem) THAT’S the part of the story nobody gets, and its the most important thing to know of all. And to add insult to injury, well meaning doctors and medical illustrators inadvertently misinform the patient and reinforce this very harmful myth by choosing breathtakingly not smart choices of words or poorly thought out illustrations (possibly because no one ever explained this satisfactorily to the illustrator). I’m pretty sure I’ve talked to you about this issue re explaining visual field defects, and that I’ve only seen it done right once, in a text book on visual fields. No one else has ever gotten this right that I know of.  If you pursue this, I sure hope you do...

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  Iain Mellis

  • February 18, 2020 12:46

  Maybe have one image of a road when someone is driving, with very little hazards on the image, and then a second image which looks exactly the same but with a football rolling into the road from the side?

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  Steve from Eye GIFs

  • February 18, 2020 17:12

  Thank you both for your suggestions! Iain: are you looking to showcase something like the benefits of A/R Coating?

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  Iain Mellis

  • February 18, 2020 19:41

  No. I was following on from Jim Hitchings post. No one notices visual field loss in glaucoma as the brain fills in the gaps. The ball rolling across the image would highlight that the brain would fill in the gaps and hide the fact that there is a hazard. 

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