Visual Performance In A Night Driving Simulator Using Spectacles With Wavefront Guided Correction.

Abstract

Purpose: : To compare visual performance in a night driving simulator using conventional sphero–cylindrical spectacles and spectacles with wavefront guided correction.

Methods: : Complete ophthalmic examinations were conducted on 19 subjects whose eyes were found to have at least 0.25 microns of high order aberration (HOA). Two pairs of spectacles were made for each subject – a conventional sphero–cylindrical correction based on the manifest refraction, and a wavefront guided iZon^TM lens (Ophthonix, Inc. San Diego, CA) based on measurements made with Z–View® aberrometer (Ophthonix, Inc., San Diego, CA). Visual performance was tested for the dominant eye using each of the spectacles including performance with a night driving simulator (Vision Sciences Research Corporation, San Ramon, CA). Night driving performance was assessed as a function of both detection and identification distances for objects along a rural road at 55 MPH with and without a rearview mirror glare.

Results: : Multivariate ANOVA revealed that the type of road hazard, glare, and the use of iZon^TM spectacles made a significant difference in performance (p≤0.002) for both detection and identification of the road hazards. Use of iZon^TM spectacles improved detection and identification by an average of 6 feet over all glare and road hazard conditions.

Conclusions: : Overall mean performance on the night driving task with the iZon^TM spectacles showed statistically significant improvement over standard spectacle correction. This preliminary study has lead to further refinement of selection criteria for application of this technology, and further research is on–going.

Keywords: refractive surgery: other technologies • optical properties • myopia