Basic research on normally sighted individuals and the experience of low vision practitioners together strongly suggest that secondary effects of maculopathies are eye instability and poor gaze control. These secondary problems would then contribute substantially to the clinically observed loss in visual acuity and functional loss of reading skills. Yet eye movements of patients with maculopathies have never been recorded accurately. It is critical to separate loss in acuity due to retinal dysfunction from acuity loss due to eye movements in order to: 1) develop effective rehabilitiation protocol and 2) describe retinal dysfunction associated with certain pathologies. To address these problems, experiments are proposed to: 1) measure grating acuity at various retinal regions with an image stabilization system and determine a region of """"""""optimum"""""""" acuity, 2) perform a normative study of eye movements as they relate to retinal acuity loss, 3) determine the extent that functional acuity can be improved by using biofeedback training to modify viewing angle so that targets are imaged in a region of """"""""optimum"""""""" acuity, and; 4) measure spatial contrast sensitivity utilizing a procedure that is minimally affected by eye movements. These studies will initial by focus on patients with diseases affecting primarily choroid, Bruch's membrane or pigment epithelium such as senile macular degeneration and later study, as distinct categories, patients with sensory retinal disease and vitreous - retinal interface disease.
| Whittaker, S G; Budd, J; Cummings, R W (1988) Eccentric fixation with macular scotoma. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 29:268-78 |
| Cummings, R W; Whittaker, S G; Watson, G R et al. (1985) Scanning characters and reading with a central scotoma. Am J Optom Physiol Opt 62:833-43 |
