The UC Davis Eye Center is running a pilot study that takes virtual reality eye exams to residents of Eskaton Village, an assisted living community in Carmichael, California, near Sacramento. In the community's recreation room a trained operator fits the headset and places a controller in the resident's hand, then tracks progress on a tablet. An AI virtual assistant called “Annie” talks the resident through a roughly fifteen-minute exam covering visual acuity, the ability to see different colours and shapes, and how the pupils react to light. The results are displayed on the tablet and can be transmitted automatically to the resident's own ophthalmologist.
The programme was designed by Yin Allison Liu, a neuro-ophthalmologist at the UC Davis Eye Center who also holds appointments in neurology and neurosurgery. Liu is investigating whether a community-based VR exam can flag visual changes that reflect early neurological disease, citing research that visual processing changes appear about ten to twelve years before a formal Alzheimer's diagnosis; she and colleagues published a review documenting retinal microstructural and microvascular changes in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Liu is explicit that the platform does not diagnose Alzheimer's disease or any neurological condition — it screens for visual changes that can indicate cognitive dysfunction. The device is one of two models made by Olleyes, a Summit, New Jersey company co-founded in 2018 by neuro-ophthalmologist Alberto Gonzalez-Garcia; Olleyes customised its software for Liu's study so she can also note hearing problems, visual decline, or difficulty following the assistant's instructions. Gonzalez-Garcia hopes eventually to add a cognitive testing module, although established instruments such as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment are proprietary.
