After a year, high-tech, low-vision glasses exceed expectations, garner new NIH support

By CAROL HENDERSON
and DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Not only did Edison Foard, age 92, score the first touchdown in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's new Kenan Stadium in 1927, “I scored the first two touchdowns,” he recalled recently.

Now, Foard can be proud of something else. He is the oldest person to wear a pair of the world's first battery-powered, self-focusing telescopic glasses for the visually impaired.

“In the past, we probably wouldn't have been able to help Mr. Foard, but now he's thriving,” said Dr. Henry Greene, clinical associate professor of ophthalmology at the UNC-CH School of Medicine. Greene developed the glasses with engineer Robert Beadles of Durham and Dr. Russ Pekar of Chapel Hill.

Foard suffers from failing central vision, or macular degeneration, the most common vision-impairing disease of the elderly except for cataracts, Greene said. Cataracts can be surgically corrected; macular degeneration can not. Before the new glasses, patients had to rely on cumbersome magnifying lenses and non-portable electronic reading devices to enhance their vision.

“The glasses have been available for about a year, and the response from around the world has been phenomenal,” he said. “We had expected to ship 125 pairs the first year, but we sent 425. The manufacturer has been inundated with orders. We've added another distributor in Europe.”

The spectacles, called the Ocutech VES-AutoFocus Telescope System, resemble a small camera perched atop an almost standard pair of eyeglasses. A built-in telescope reflects an infrared beam off an object, a person or whatever the wearer looks at directly, Greene said. The beam triggers the world's smallest commercially available stepper motor -- weighing only a sixth of an ounce -- to focus the lens almost continuously via a computer chip.

Many major medical centers working with the visually impaired, both in the United States and abroad, have adopted the glasses, the optometrist said.

Impressed with the success of Ocutech VES, the National Eye Institute has awarded the inventors $600,000 to improve the invention.

“The newer glasses will be a binocular device that will assist primarily with reading,” Greene said. “The existing glasses were designed more for mid-range and distance activities.”

“The device has been so successful because it auto-focuses and thereby provides much more natural magnified vision,” Greene said. “All patients have to do is look. They don't have to manipulate the device. The glasses are much more user-friendly than any of the other low-vision aids available before.”

For patients whose vision improves with magnification, the high-tech glasses are the next best thing to a miracle.

“I can see everybody much better,” Foard said. A contractor living in Charlotte, Foard still goes to his office most days, though his son-in-law now runs the $20 million business. “I'm working with my glasses several hours every day, and I'm getting used to them. They're making my life much better.”

Another fan is Jessica Gordon, age 11, a fifth-grader at Easley Elementary School in Durham, N.C. Jessica was born with albinism -- a condition in which pigment is missing in the hair, skin and eyes, and the eyes never develop fully.

“In school, I can sit at a desk like everybody else now,” she said. “I don't have to be right up in front of the blackboard. I can watch my friends' faces react to me. I can recognize friends from down the hall. Except for outdoor recess, I wear my glasses all day.”

To maximize the invention's usefulness, doctors need to manage patients carefully and help them establish realistic expectations, Greene said.

“Patients need training, and so do the doctors,” he said. “Still, the glasses could help millions of visually impaired folks around the world. We're thrilled and very excited about the future.”

“For the first time I can sit on the couch and watch TV with my family,” Jessica Gordon said. “And I can stand at the kitchen door and watch the birds at our outdoor feeder.”

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Media Note: Greene can be reached at (919) 493-7456, Beadles at 383-8794. Ocutech's number is 1-800-326-6460.

Contact: David Williamson, (919) 962-8596.