NCT00971464

Low Vision Study Comparing EV Training vs. CCTV for AMD Rehabilitation

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Eccentric Viewing Training vs. Closed Circuit Television Use for Visual Rehabilitation From Age-Related Macular Degeneration

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 2
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 10 (actual)
• Sponsor: London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute OR Lawson Research Institute of St. Joseph's · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Patients with advanced Age-Related Macular Degeneration will be randomized into one of two treatment groups. One group will receive eccentric view (EV) training while the other a closed circuit television (CCTV) training for 6 weeks. Reading speed and accuracy will be assessed pre- and post- treatment to determine if one treatment is superior to the other.

Detailed description

Age-related macular degeneration is the single most common cause of visual impairment in Canada, affecting people over the age of 55 years. It causes loss of central, detailed vision, resulting in difficulty with fine vision tasks, such as reading and writing. At present there is no fully effective prevention or treatment for this condition, but people do benefit from visual rehabilitation. Two of the most common rehabilitation techniques are eccentric viewing training and an electronic magnification system called a Closed circuit television (CCTV). In eccentric viewing training the person is taught to use his or her remaining side vision, instead of central vision. The CCTV provides high levels of magnification to compensate for the loss of detail vision. The purpose of this randomized clinical trial is to compare the effectiveness of these two interventions. In the study people will be randomly assigned to either receiving eccentric viewing training or a CCTV. This will happen after they have received basic, optical low vision services and training through the CNIB. We will assess their performance with either the CCTV or EV training with a variety of reading tasks and questionnaires. The results will give evidence for how it is most beneficial to use resources and as such will be very important in future planning of low vision services. Hypothesis: Eccentric Viewing Training will improve reading speed over CCTV by at least 10 words per minute in patients with advanced AMD.

Conditions

• AMD

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	eccentric viewing (EV) training	Eccentric viewing training for 6 weeks, minimum two 10 minutes per day.
DEVICE	Closed circuit television (CCTV)	A CCTV is an electro-optical device mainly used for reading.

Timeline

• Start date: 2009-09-01
• Primary completion: 2011-09-01
• Completion: 2011-09-01
• First posted: 2009-09-03
• Last updated: 2012-09-10

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada