A team of researchers from the US and Switzerland has developed a contact lens that may improve vision in AMD patients by offering them a choice between normal or magnified vision.

The system uses mirror surfaces to make a telescope that has been integrated into a contact lens just over a millimeter thick. The centre of the lens provides unmagnified vision, while the ring-shaped telescope located at the periphery of the regular contact lens magnifies the view 2.8 times. The user can switch between the two thanks to the liquid crystals in the glasses ordinarily used for viewing 3D television. These glasses selectively block either portion of the contact lens.

"For a visual aid to be accepted it needs to be highly convenient and unobtrusive," says one of the members of the team led by Dr. Joseph Ford, researcher Eric Tremblay, of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. This lens would be an attractive compromise between the huge frame-mounted telescopes and surgically implanted micro-telescopes.

Tests showed that the magnified image was clear and provided a much larger field of view than other magnification approaches. Improvements still need to be made, namely with regard to colour correction, before the system can be used by patients.

Sources:

http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-21-13-15980

http://www.visionmonday.com/latest-news/article/telescopic-contact-lens-may-help-amd-patients/