Although equipment suppliers were under-represented among the many exhibitors at SILMO Sydney, several new or recent releases were on display.Generally, the number of one-on-one interactions observed at the instrument stands suggested keen interest from the visitors in the latest clinical equipment.Tackling Amblyopia with VR{{image2-a:l-w:400}}Brisbane-based supplier France Medical displayed Vivid Vision, a novel approach to treating amblyopia at almost any age, including outside the so-called critical period for amblyopia treatment (arguably <8 years of age).Mr James Blaha, the young co-founder of Vivid Vision and the creator of the immersive VR syst was originally a video game programmer. However, he was strabismic and amblyopic and, despite being subjected to the usual treatments, he failed to achieve stereopsis. So, using his background in gaming and virtual reality, he used his own innovations and developments to eventually achieve stereopsis.With input from McGill University’s Department of Ophthalmology research director, Professor Robert Hess – who presented some of his tablet computer-based amblyopia training in Melbourne in 2013 – Blaha and colleagues have developed the Vivid Vision syst into a successful commercial product.{{image3-a:r-w:300}}Using existing commercial equipment combined with special software, the ‘patient’ can play in 3D with asteroids, spacecraft, bubbles, rings, etc. Meanwhile, monocular levels of stimulation can be controlled and the player is unaware of the manipulations being managed behind the scenes during the therapy sessions.Input data relates to VA, ocular motility, ocular angular deviations, vergence ranges, presence or absence of fusion and depth of suppression. Compliance can also be monitored rotely, a feature that can only be matched by in-office therapy sessions, something that is not always practicable or desirable.A hand-help slit-lampAnother France Medical offering was the Optisun Medical HSL-100 digital slit-lamp, a small, portable, slit-lamp with an integral digital camera, its only viewing syst. In humanitarian theatres of operation, such a magnifying tool is often all that can be carried. The fact that it can record images and links to other systs via WiFi or a mini-USB connector adds to its appeal.Linking fundal appearance to perimetric performanceOpticare exhibited the CenterVue Compass Automated Fundus Perimeter from Italy. The device combines a TrueColor confocal scanning ophthalmoscope to image the ocular fundus, with an automated perimeter (24-2 visual field test) to overlay precisely the retina in detail – along with how the retina performed locally – perimetrically.It can be used without vision correction in place and without a mydriatics and also features eye tracking and provides linked retinal structure and visual function analysis. The instrument’s printout is in a familiar form as well as offering the perimetry data overlaid on a fundus image.An affordable way to treat dry eye{{image5-a:r-w:400}}Device Technologies, local agents for North Carolina’s TearScience, displayed the new LipiScan tear film-imaging device, which forms a more affordable component of the TearScience LipiFlow treatment syst.LipiScan can be used as a substitute for the LipiView II device, although the latter offers more functions at a higher cost. The LipiScan offers a rapid (10 seconds), high definition overview of the Meibomian glands in a smaller package. It foregoes some of the LipiView interferometer features such as lipid layer thickness, blink dynamics, and Meibomian gland structural details.Latest clinical equipment gallery
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