Daytime vs Nighttime City Navigation Task to Characterize Glaucoma-Related Visual Disability

Researchers have developed virtual reality (VR) simulations to measure vision-related disability among patients with glaucoma and other eye disorders. For example, participants wearing VR headsets were asked to navigate a virtual distance of approximately 90 m under daytime conditions in a city area modeled on Hong Kong. This video illustrates a comparison of the VR performance of a patient with glaucoma during simulated daytime (A) and nighttime (B). The patient took 85.1 seconds in the daytime navigation with 2 collisions vs 167.8 seconds with 1 collision in the nighttime navigation. The performance suggests that VR simulations can help eye care professionals better understand from patients' perspective how visual impairment impairs them in their daily lives. MD indicates mean deviation; VFI, visual field index. Click the related article link for video illustrating performance on other simulated tasks and for complete details of the VR project.