2019 Smart Living Grand Award

ACE VR Ltd.

Evaluation of Visual Disability in a Virtual Reality Environment

Description of Entry:
Clinical assessment of vision-related disability experienced by visually-impaired patients is obfuscated by the lack of instruments that can inform real-world visual performance. ACE VR Ltd. has constructed virtual reality (VR) environments in a VR headset simulating day-to-day activities to visualise and quantify visual disability. These include (1) supermarket shopping, (2) stair navigation in daytime, (3) stair navigation in nighttime, (4) city navigation in daytime, and (5) city navigation in nighttime. Its data supports VR simulations can empower clinicians to better understand a patient’s perspective of what and how daily activities impart disability and connect clinical test results of vision to performance measures that are relevant to patients. The innovation of VR simulations of activities that are relevant to patients’ real-world experience provides a new paradigm to measure visual disability for enhancement of clinical care, facilitating clinicians to devise appropriate treatment, support and visual aids to improve patients’ quality of vision and quality of life.

 

Comments from Judging Panel:
This is an innovative and well-designed application leveraging virtual reality (VR) technology in the evaluation of visual disability.It gives great flexibility in the testing administration with this noninvasive VR simulations when compare to the traditional way of clinical testing for eye diseases. It improves the efficiency for eye testing thus facilitates the clinicians to adopt appropriate treatments. It can also generate a quantitative standard for visual impairment based on the data obtained from users.

It is impressive that the applicant has successfully applied multimedia elements and gamification concepts in clinical practices. It is expected to gain a greater level of acceptance and adoption in eye care industry in future, benefiting the society as a whole.

Evaluation of Visual Disability in a Virtual Reality Environment 1

Evaluation of Visual Disability in a Virtual Reality Environment 2