Technologies for Patients with Low Vision

Drs. Mary Lou Jackson and Mark Bona present several devices that can assist people with low vision. Dr. Jackson presented two text-to-speech products: The Victor Reader Stream is useful for reading magazines, books or newspapers, while the Seeing AI app, which can be downloaded for free from Microsoft, can scan barcodes and identify faces. She also presented a portable video magnifier that can enlarge any object or text, or freeze an image so that the user can take a better look. Dr. Bona described head-mounted displays, such as the Jordy Wearable Low Vision Glasses. These displays feature a front-mounted camera and video processor to record and play video for the user. He also described the emerging field of tele-assistance. This technology will allow a patient to capture visual scenes via smart glasses, and transmit that information through a smartphone app to a remote assistant. The assistant, in turn, can describe the scene to the user.

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