Chapters authored
Low-Vision Rehabilitation in Maculopathy
Maculopathy can have many causes: congenital, hereditary and acquired. The response of a maculopathy is the formation of a scotoma that can be relative or absolute with difficulty or impossibility to read, write and see the normal activities of daily life. The visually impaired person therefore has an insufficient level of visual ability to perform daily activities, work or leisure activities that are usual for individuals of the same age, sex and sociocultural status. A more or less serious low vision and a visual disability are thus created. The visually impaired person is able to use the eccentric visual residue in the preferential retinal network. With visual rehabilitation, a visual capacity lost by the patient is gained, developing eccentric fixation, giving the patient the awareness of his own possibilities to see and use the use of optical and electronic aids.
Part of the book: Visual Impairment and Blindness
Low-Vision Rehabilitation with Audio-Biofeedback in Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Audio-biofeedback (AFBF) with microperimetry is an important step in low-vision rehabilitation in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). After identifying the preferential retinal locus (PRL) with microperimetry, it is possible to begin rehabilitation to stabilize the PRL, increasing the quality of vision with 10 sessions of audio-biofeedback, at least one session per week, of 10 minutes for each eye. This involves presenting a chessboard grid in the site of fixation variable from the beginning to the end of the session. Audio-biofeedback allows for shifting the site of fixation to another point if the spontaneous fixation that the patient has found is not good to continue rehabilitation; at the end of biofeedback, we call this site the trained retinal locus (TRL) to differentiate it from the PRL. With audio-biofeedback, the low-vision patient with AMD acquires awareness about the best site of vision, thus improving the quality of vision, including better contrast sensitivity, visual acuity, color perception, and definition of the surrounding world.
Part of the book: Recent Advances and New Perspectives in Managing Macular Degeneration