Influence of open-source virtual-reality based gaze training on navigation performance in Retinitis pigmentosa patients in a crossover randomized controlled trial.

Abstract

MethodsA group of RP patients (n = 8, aged 20-60) participated in a study consisting of two 4-week-phases, both carried out by the same patient group in randomized order: In the 'training phase', participants carried out a Virtual-Reality gaze training for 30 minutes per day; In the 'control phase', no training occurred. Before and after each phase, participants were tasked to move through a randomized real-world obstacle course. Navigation performance in the obstacle course as well as eye-tracking data during the trials were evaluated. The study is registered at the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS) with the ID DRKS00032628.ResultsOn average, the time required to move through the obstacle course decreased by 17.0% after the training phase, the number of collisions decreased by 50.0%. Both effects are significantly higher than those found in the control phase (p ConclusionThe performance increase over the training phase significantly surpasses the natural learning effect found in the control phase, suggesting that Virtual-Reality based gaze training can have a positive effect on real-world navigation tasks for patients with RP. The training is available as work-in-progress open-source software.