NIH R01EY030470: Automated Orientation & Mobility Training in Virtual Reality for Low Vision Rehabilitation

Project Summary

Irreversible impairment of vision (low vision) negatively impacts the patient’s ability to conduct activities of daily living. One of the most important activities that are affected is mobility, the ability to move independently, safely, and efficiently in one’s environment. Orientation and Mobility (O&M) rehabilitation is the only proven treatment that restores mobility lost to low vision. O&M rehabilitation is conducted by Certified O&M Specialists (COMS), who teach navigation skills to low vision travelers in real streets and guide them to practice these skills until they achieve their mobility goals. Due to the potential danger of practicing navigation skills in real streets, a low vision traveler has to be accompanied by a COMS throughout O&M skill training, which may take many hours. While the current O&M rehabilitation is effective, it is not accessible or affordable to many individuals with low vision who can benefit from it. This is because there is only a small number of COMS who tend to cluster in large cities because low vision individuals have limited mobility to reach O&M specialists because low vision individuals tend to have low income or are unemployed and thus cannot afford the cost of individual lessons from COMS, which is not reimbursable by insurance.

Our solution to the accessibility and affordability problems to O&M rehabilitation is a Virtual Reality-based Intelligent O&M Specialists (VR-IOMS), a computer program that can conduct quality O&M skill training automatically in safe virtual streets. If successfully developed and validated, low vision individuals can conduct self-regulated O&M skill learning from the VR-IOMS in safe virtual environments, in their convenient locations and times, and with minimal cost. The objectives of this research project are to develop VR-IOMSs that can teach three sets of skills for three O&M tasks, to implement them on virtual reality simulators, and to compare the training effectiveness of the VR-IOMSs with the training effectiveness of human COMS in a clinical training trial. The three VR-IOMSs are specialized in teaching skills for three O&M tasks, the timing to cross a signalized street (TCSS), the timing to cross an uncontrolled street (TCUS), and learning the outdoor numbering system (LONS). The three VR-IOMSs will be developed, implemented in sequence. The training trials of these VR-IOMSs commence after the implementation of the VR-IOMSs.

Personnel

Project Investigators:

Developers & Graduate Students:

Trainers and Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialists (COMS):

Participant is interacting with the Road and Pedestrian Safety Simulation in the training session. This phase is performed before every evaluation task to provide participants with the basic knowledge and traffic safety rules.

Evaluation phase of Road and Pedestrian Safety Simulation with a participant wearing cataract vision goggles. The goggles demonstrate the effect of glare on visual function, they also offer a general understanding of congenital impairments.

Participant is provided with auditory and text based information. Objects in the scene are highlighted as they are providing the participant with a better and more clear understanding of the concepts in the virtual traffic environment.

The simulation is performed on three displays in a surround setup with stereo speakers to provide a comfortable and an immersive experience the participant can learn from and perform evaluations in the Road and Pedestrian Safety Simulation.