India's first software therapy for children suffering from CVI launched

Bengaluru: Narayana Nethralaya in collaboration with Acer India on Wednesday launched the PC and tablet-based software, "VisioNova" designed for children suffering from Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). This initiative by Narayana Nethralaya and Acer India aims at breaking down barriers and providing the patients with better access to treatment.

Acer VisioNova, a path-breaking innovation was conceptualized as a mobile alternative to on-site therapy for CVI children that will offer them the standard care. Narayana Nethralaya as a part of its 'Buds to Blossoms' initiative provides dedicated therapy programs to help children develop and improve motor, cognitive and visual abilities that significantly improve their quality of life.

Cortical Visual Impairment is a condition of bilateral visual loss caused due to injury of visual areas in the brain without significant eye or anterior visual pathway impairment. CVI is currently an emerging cause amongst children across India. With 161 children in every 100,000 born with CVI, India has declared it to be a high priority issue and classified it as one of 30 conditions that all babies must receive mandatory screenings. These children with CVI have great difficulty in performing visually guided activities and these therapies rely on machines that are bulky, expensive and require the child to be in the hospital for the entire duration of six-to-nine-month therapeutic process. In order to address this, Acer provided PC and 100+ tablets under CSR to kick-off this noble cause. Acer has also further intent to supply around 2,000 tablets for patients who can pay the hospital a small, refundable deposit and receive the tablet for use from the comforts of their home and still continue treatments even with COVID disruptions.

The tablet will offer CVI patients exercises that can benefit and help them develop and improve their deficient skills and visual abilities that significantly improve the quality of life. Also, since a number of specialised therapies that are deployed require expensive equipment that need the child to be present at the centre for the entire duration of the treatment, this tablet will allow remote therapy under the mentorship of Narayana Nethralaya' CVI experts, making this treatment accessible to the outreach.

On the occasion of this launch, Harish Kohli, President and Managing Director, Acer India, said, "It is a matter of pride for us to join this innovative collaboration with Narayana Nethralaya where technology helps break barriers to improve lives. Acer VisioNova engineered the overall solution, comprising both the software and the hardware. At Acer, we always believe in closing the gap between people and technology and to meaningfully improve clinical outcomes and reduce the systemic cost of healthcare, VisioNova will help patients with timely access to care when they need it."

"With Buds to Blossoms and Acer India initiative, we are aiming to make differently-abled children independent and integrate them with the normal stream of society. This collaboration is important for us to help integrate the CVI patients. Acer VisioNova is a next-gen software which is a dedicated solution to help over hundreds of visually impaired children from their homes," said Dr Bhujang Shetty, Founder and Chairman, Narayana Nethralaya Eye Institute, Bengaluru.