Ubisoft SA on Tuesday unveiled a tablet video game crafted as a prescription for a medical condition known as “lazy eye,” blending the worlds of play and healthcare.
The France-based video game titan created Dig Rush in collaboration with US health technology startup Amblyotech Inc, using treatment technology patented by innovators at McGill University in Canada.
“This is a good demonstration of the positive impact that video game technology can have on our society,” Ubisoft senior producer Mathieu Ferland said.
Photo: AFP
The game targets amblyopia, a condition in which a person’s eye and brain are out of sync, and which is reported to affect 3 percent of the global population.
If untreated, people with can go blind in one eye, according to Amblyotech chief executive Joseph Koziak.
“When you look at a person who has it, one eye is visually misaligned as compared to the other,” Koziak said. “The traditional monicker is ‘lazy eye.’”
Amblyopia involves one eye being far less useful than the other, creating a situation in which the brain responds by suppressing visual input from a weak eye and relying on the strong eye, Koziak said.
Relying on one eye results in people losing depth perception.
Dig Rush requires both eyes to take part to effectively play the game. Characters, equipment and scenes set on a gray background are either red or blue, and players wear glasses that filter out one color or the other depending on the eye.
“The only way to play this game is to force the patient to use two eyes,” Ferland said. “This treatment is reconditioning the brain to use both eyes.”
Amblyotech is seeking approval from US regulators to have Dig Rush be prescribed by doctors. Medical care providers would provide tablets as treatment tools, tending to training, calibration and settings, as well as monitoring progress.
Testing has shown Dig Rush is about 90 percent effective in improving the vision of those with the condition, Amblyotech chief operating officer Robert Derricotte said.
Current treatments are relatively ineffective and involve providing a patch to cover a person’s dominant eye to force the weaker eye to work with the brain, but still leave a patient without 3D perception, Derricotte said.
“This is a game-changer,” Derricotte said. “Doctors have been patching patients for over 200 years; this is a radical new way to treat Amblyopia.”
Pricing for the game had yet to be announced.
Koziak saw Dig Rush as the first of a new order of treatments delivered by touch-screen tablets instead of traditional medical methods.
“I look at the tablet as the syringe of the future; where you use a visual display to administer a drug to a patient,” Koziak said. “While this is for an ocular disorder, there are going to be other medical conditions in the future that can be treated through this kind of display.”
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