Israeli startup NovaSight Ltd. wants to treat lazy eye by letting patients watch movies.
Lazy eye, also known as amblyopia, is a condition that affects up to 4% of all children, according to the American Optometric Association, and can be entirely cured by wearing an eye patch. NovaSight has developed an alternative course of treatment for amblyopia that ditches the eyepatch, instead using movies to train patients’ eyes.
The condition amounts to when the two eyes aren’t synced up in their movements. Normally both eyes will focus the detail-oriented fovea part of the retina on whatever object the person is attending to; in those with amblyopia, one eye won’t target the fovea correctly and as a result the eyes don’t converge properly and vision suffers, and if not treated can lead to serious vision loss.