Many people worldwide feel they’re in the dark without the use of their hands due to critical diseases, disabilities, or injuries. At AC Lens, we’re concerned enough with blurry vision, and we couldn’t imagine the difficulty of not being able to use your hands to write and communicate with? This problem has been a focus for many medical professionals for ages, and it appears one doctor may have finally found a way to solve this problem through the use of eye movements.
According to a Yahoo News article, Dr. Jean Lorenceau of France has developed an entirely new treatment, which can allow patients to write with their eye movements on a digital screen. The treatment shows promise for helping people who are suffering from paralysis, Alzheimers, and other debilitating diseases, while also having potential in many other non-medical avenues.
Overcoming Barriers With Eye Movement
The primary problem that had been difficult to overcome previously was allowing the eyes to move freely to “write” with, without focusing on a stationary object. Our eyes are programmed to focus on independent points, so when one would try to shift their gaze across a stationary object, it’s the eye’s normal reaction to “saccade” or to focus on one point then “jump” to the next point.
Dr Lorenceau has developed a means to bypass the eye’s nature to focus on object, by tricking it into thinking that the objects being viewed are constantly moving via a blinking screen. Due to the screen, the eyes can move freely without having to focus independently on singular objects, which allows the eyes to write and communicate freely without having issues with saccading.
The writing system works in tandem with a video monitor, which can accurately display the movements of the eye. While the primary purpose is for medical use, Dr. Lorenceau speculated that the system could be used for training, for creative aspects, or for children who are having problems with eye movement.