VR Exergames for ocular diseases diagnosis

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization, in 2011 there were about 314 million people with impaired vision, due either to ocular diseases or uncorrected ocular errors. Around 45 million people, of these 314 million, are blind. About 75% of all blindness and visual impairment cases caused by these diseases are avoidable. There are already some practical and relatively cheap tools to make this diagnosis, but all of them are intrusive, which doesn’t make them too attractive. To solve this issue, we thought of a non-intrusive way to diagnose eye problems. So we created a Virtual Reality exergame, EyeCare, that tests users’ vision, while they are having fun playing it. This exergame is meant to be played by teenagers and young adults, using only a smartphone and Virtual Reality visor. EyeCare consists in a game where users have to complete several puzzles to escape the forest. The users play the puzzles to assess their astigmatism, contrast sensitivity, color blindness, and peripheral vision. In the end, the results are given to the users as problems that they may have. With this solution, our goal is to diagnose diseases early enough, so they can be monitored, and thus reducing the number of people with impaired vision and blindness.