Wearable device to help vision-impaired navigate

WASHINGTON: Researchers have developed a new pocket-sized wearable device to keep vision-impaired people from colliding with high-level obstacles.

People who have lost some of their peripheral vision, such as those with retinitis pigmentosa, glaucoma, or brain injury that causes half visual field loss,

often face mobility challenges and increased likelihood of falls and collisions.

for addressing mobility challenges related to vision loss.

Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute used an obstacle course to evaluate a wearable collision warning device

they developed for patients with peripheral vision loss.

They found the device may help patients with a wide range of vision loss avoid collisions with high-level obstacles.

"We developed this pocket-sized collision warning device, which can predict impending collisions based on time to collision rather than proximity," said the

senior author Gang Luo, Associate Scientist at Mass Eye and Ear/Schepens, and Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School.

"It gives warnings only when the users approach to obstacles, not when users stand close to objects and not when moving objects just pass by. So, the

Original post:
Wearable device to help vision-impaired navigate