Abstract: While it is well known in clinical circles that the amblyopic eye is subject to strong inhibition from the fellow eye, the mainstay of treatment has been, and continues to be a monocular one, namely, patching. Recent research concepts have shifted thinking away from viewing amblyopia as simply a monocular disorder to that of it being a result of damage to the binocular vision system that thus requires a primary binocular approach to treatment. Dichoptic therapy involves sending separate and independent images to each eye under binocular viewing conditions, and is purported to reduce suppression of the amblyopic eye in an effort to improve binocular (stereopsis) as well as monocular (visual acuity) visual deficits.

Video gaming research has shown that gamers enjoy many advantages over non-gamers, such as better attentional resource allocation and reaction times, and are better at exploiting task-relevant information. Video games often have complex scenes and are goal-oriented, and this enriched visual environment may promote cortical plasticity. Video games, even under monocular testing conditions, have been shown to result in improvements to amblyopic deficits. Video games, then, seem poised to be an ideal option to employ in a dichoptic therapy platform.

Many of these studies are showing promising improvements in visual acuity and stereoacuity in amblyopia. But how good are these improvements? Are they clinically relevant gains or simply statistically significant ones? Are they truly addressing suppression? How is compliance? Are there any risks to this type of therapy that patients should know about? Is it time to abandon patching as a mainstay of amblyopia treatment? This workshop will present several studies using dichoptic therapy and video games in the treatment of amblyopia, explain the theoretical principles behind them and assess results from a clinical perspective.