Amblyopia is the medical term used when the vision in one of the eyes is reduced because the eye and the brain are not working together properly.  The eye itself looks normal, but it is not being used normally because the brain is favouring the other eye.  This condition is also sometimes called lazy eye.

Amblyopia will occur when the visual input to the retina of one eye is impaired.  There are three causes for amblyopia:
1.    Anisometropia:  This is when one eye has a much stronger refractive error (prescription) than the other eye resulting in blurred vision in one eye.  This is the most common cause of amblyopia and the type that LazyEye Arcade can help with.
2.    Strabismis:  This occurs when one eye points in a different direction than the other eye resulting in the brain suppressing (or turning off) the image to that eye to prevent double vision.
3.    Deprivational:  This is when some form of opacity in the optics of the eye impairs the image to one eye.  The most common cause for this is a cataract.

Treating amblyopia involves forcing the child to use the eye with weaker vision. The current standard treatment for amblyopia is patching.

A patch is worn over the stronger eye for a few hours each day for weeks to months. This therapy forces the child to use the eye with amblyopia. Patching stimulates vision in the weaker eye and helps parts of the brain involved in vision develop more completely.

Patching works well for most individuals but there are some factors that may yield less than ideal results:  Patching may not work very well or at all in older children or adults.  Improvements gained with patching can sometimes regress with time.  Patching does not tend to improve stereopsis (3D vision) very much.  Some individuals will plateau at a certain level with patching.

Research in the past 15 years has shown techniques using dichoptic contrast video games which seem to provide an additional form of treatment for amblyopia. Dichoptic video games provide a situation in which one eye views part of the video game and the other eye another part of the video game – so you need to use both eyes together to play the game.

Studies show that this treatment with dichoptic contrast video games can get additional vision improvements in older children and adults, can improve vision that has plateaued with patching, provides improvement that doesn’t seem to regress after stopping and provides better stereopsis (3D vision).

LAZYEYE ARCADE is a website that provides access to a portal that provides arcade style games that can used to treat amblyopia.

Patching remains the gold standard for treating amblyopia and we do not recommend replacing your patching protocol with LAZYEYE ARCADE. LAZYEYE ARCADE uses a special type of contrast reduced dichoptic viewing and has been shown to be beneficial in cases of non-compliance with patching, where visual acuity improvement has reached a plateau and in adults where patching is infective.

Dichoptic Viewing is simply the situation when one eye seems one part of an image and the other eye sees another part of an image – thus the two eyes need to work together to see the entire image. Typically this is achieved using red/green, red/blue or polarized glasses.

This is an example of a dichopitic image. If you viewed this image through red /blue glasses you would see the body of the cat with both eyes and the red parts with one eye and the blue parts with the other eye.

The key to LazyEye Arcade involves reducing the contrast in the non-amblyopic eye. This is important because new research seems to indicate that amblyopia may actually be a binocular problem rather than a monocular one.   This research indicates that the non-amblyopic eye actively suppresses the amblyopic image. So if you use just dichoptic images the amblyopic patient would tend to suppress the amblyopic eye to a certain extent resulting in poor results. New research has shown the key is to reduce the contrast in the non-amblyopic eye which will prevent this eye from suppressing the amblyopic eye. The key is using BOTH dichoptic viewing AND reduced contrast

This picture an  the same dichoptic cat with an example of reduced contrast.  In this case the red parts of the image would be viewed by the non-amblyopic eye.

Most studies indicate that results from dichoptic contrast treatments can be achieved in 10-20 hours. If a patient is using LazyEye Arcade for 30 minutes a day, they should reach maximum benefits within 3 months.

This is an important question and the key reason why patients need to monitor by an optometrist.   The optometrist will provide a tracking sheet that instructs what the contrast level should be.

Patients should wear their prescription glasses or contacts while using LazyEye Arcade. Patients will require Red/Blue glasses overtop of their current glasses or contacts. The game can be played on a laptop, desktop or mobile devices. Connection to the Internet is required.

Research on dichoptic contrast treatment for amblyopia started about 10 years ago.  There are a number of studies that show the benefits but here is a quick summary.  If you are an Optometrist and would like full citations please send us an email in our contact section.  Below are listed some of the results of research using patching and various forms of dichoptic viewing, highlighted are the results for dichoptic contrast training (like that used in LazyEye Arcade).

In children:

21 hours of Non-contrast dichoptic video games: ~1 line improvement, no improvement in depth perception.

21 hours of Non-contrast dichoptic DVD watching: ~1 line improvement, no improvement in depth perception.

21 hours of non-dichoptic video game: ~1 line improvement, no improvement in depth perception.

In Adults (15 years and older)

14 hours with contrast dichoptic video games: ~2 lines improvement and 4X improvement in depth perception.

14 hours with patching and video games = ~0.5 line improvement and no stereo improvement

20 hours patching without video games: No vision  improvement.

20 hours patching while playing video games: ~1.25lines VA improvement

40 hours patching while playing video games: ~1.5lines VA improvement

Yes. There is a demo version that is available on our website at LazyEye Arcade. This allows full access to all the games and features of the game, however it will only allow you to play each game for 10 seconds. With each order of 5 LazyEye Arcade kits we will provide you with one free pair of red/blue glasses that you can use to demonstrate LazyEye Arcade to patients. If you would simply like to purchase a set of LazyEye Arcade Red/Blue glasses the cost is $25.