A Duncansville eye practice is using a new virtual reality device made by Florida based company Heru, to diagnose severe conditions in patients.
Our Dylan Huberman was out there Today and got to take the device for a spin.
This ar like headset can detect serious eye diseases like Glaucoma in minutes…and it’s being used right here in Blair County.
“To be able to detect serious diseases like Glaucoma in a relatively 4-5 minute period of time, that is what’s probably one of the best things about visual field technology.”
Duncansville Optometrist Greg Caldwell says he came across the device a little over a year ago.
“At a conference about 12-18 months ago down in Florida. I was receiving actually text messages regarding this technology because I do teach visual field technology, and started to explore it and found out how exciting it really is.”
I got to try on the device and experience the test, where I used the trigger in my hand when I saw flashing dots around this grid, representing my visual field…but what does that actually do?
“Our visual field, again, is…I’m looking straight at you, so it’s our side vision and we, through technology and many years of testing, know what that visual threshold, or how bright that should be for a patient of a certain age to be able to see, and whenever we that, it goes a database of an age-specific and compares it, and allows us to know whether it’s normal or not.”
While Doctor Caldwell was a bit skeptical at first, he says that’s no longer the case, and it’s miles ahead of the tech it’s replacing.
“The patients enjoy it, it’s interactive, the test moves up, down, left and right. The old technology is just kind of keep staring straight ahead, don’t blink, don’t move your eyes.”
