Abstract
Purpose :
To report our 10 years experience on rehabilitation techniques of patients with Argus II retinal implants.
Methods :
Fourteen patients (55 Years old average, 3 women and 11 men) have done at least 10 sessions of 2 hours of rehabilitation. Duration of the process of rehabilitation ranged from 2 months to 4 months (except 4 of them who got more sessions). By identifying the basic tasks, a specific technique was developed for each of the tasks. We developed different scanning techniques taking advantage of retinal persistence based on the analysis of 2- and 3-dimensional objects, of the environment and of moving targets or people. A 3-step specific technique for eye-camera-hand coordination was also developed for improving the grip of objects.
Results :
As our procedure improved, patients performed increasingly complex tasks. The first patients managed to follow a line on the ground, to recognize a simple form (circle, square ...), to point to an object, to detect a door ; while patients benefiting from more advanced rehabilitation could recognize and grab objects, read words in large print (Century Gothic, 95), follow a walking person, analyze landscapes, use their system in certain sports activities (mountain climbing, skiiing).
Conclusions :
A progressive, repeated training is crucial to help the patient incorporate the input of the retinal implant into their sensorial experience and to optimize its functional benefit. Incorporating retinal persistence and scanning technique for every task increases the visual potential beyond the pixel density and the size of the implant.
The main goal of future researchin rehabilitation techniques will be to optimize the use of the system to make it more present in the daily lives of patients.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.