Moderate or Severe Vision Impairment, Both Eyes Clinical Trial
Official title:
The Effectiveness of Portable Electronic Vision Enhancement Systems (EVES) in Comparison to Optical Magnifiers for Near Vision Activities in Visual Impairment - The p-EVES Study
Over 1 million people in the UK suffer from untreatable visual impairment, many of them
elderly. The major complaint of visually impaired people is their inability to carry out
simple tasks, especially those involving reading. It is known that this activity limitation
is a major cause of depression in an older population, and it is reflected in reduced quality
of life. Low vision clinics, mostly based within hospital ophthalmology departments, dispense
optical magnifiers to allow patients to carry out these tasks again, but these devices do
have limitations (unusual posture, short working distance, monocular viewing). Although
electronic magnifiers have been around since the 1960s, they were initially very large and
expensive. Recent advances in technology have brought about an explosion in the number and
range of portable and moderately-priced aids, which can be used binocularly, in a natural
working position: these are currently not available through the NHS. Evidence is needed as to
whether these portable hand-held electronic magnifiers could offer a significant benefit to
the majority of patients, and therefore whether they should be routinely dispensed in low
vision clinics.
The proposed study is a two-arm randomised crossover trial with existing users of optical
magnifiers being assigned to use a hand-held electronic magnifier in addition to their
existing devices for 2 months. Reading and task performance will be measured with the aid,
and compared to the performance with optical aids, and the patient will be asked to report on
the comparisons between the aids.
n/a