Assessment of visual space recognition in patients with visual field defects using head mounted display (HMD) system: Case study with severe visual field defect

For the quantitative assessment of visual field defects of cerebrovascular patients, we developed a new measurement system that could present various kinds of visual information to the patient. In this system, we use a head mounted display as the display device. The quantitative assessment becomes possible by adding the capability to measure the eye movement and the head movement simultaneously by means of a video apparatus of motion analysis. In our study, we examined the effectiveness of this system by applying it to a patient with serious visual field defects. The visual image of the reduced test paper was presented to the patient, the effect on his/her spatial recognition and eye movement was investigated. The results indicated the increase in the ration of visual search in the reduced side. With the reduced image, the decrease of the angular velocity of eye movement was recognized in the visual search in the defected side. In the motion analysis, the head movement was not observed while the eye movements appeared corresponding to each different conditions. This fact led us to confirm that the patient coped with this kind of test by the eye movement. In this analysis, the effectiveness and the usefulness of the developed system were confirmed that enables us to evaluate the abnormal and compensation movement of the eyes.