THE EFFECT OF VIRTUAL REALITY ON OCULOMOTOR FUNCTION

Virtual reality (VR) has become a mainstay with it’s increasing application in diverse fields. The use of head-mounted display (HMD) provides a more immersive computer generated world when compared to other video formats. It is therefore essential to understand the effects of VR on oculomotor function. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of VR on oculomotor function. A total of 29 participants with mean age 24.41 ± 1.98 comprising 14 males and 15 females, who met the inclusion criteria were recruited for this study. The clinical accommodative and vergence measurements linked to the oculomotor system that were of interest in this study were collected before and after watching a 3D movie with a VR-HD for 45 minutes. The Baseline measurements were analyzed using the One-Sample t test. The Paired- Samples t test was used to compare the mean values of the baseline measurements with those recorded after the virtual reality. The study revealed significant change in AOA in the right eye (p=0.005), no significant difference in the left eye (p= 0.199) and other accommodative measurements (p=0.076 and p=0.725 for NRA AND PRA respectively). PFV break at near showed a significant difference (p=0.003) but there was no significant difference for other vergence measurements’ break components (p=0.414 and p= 0.257 for NPC and NFV ). There
was no significant difference for vergence measurements’ recovery components (p= 0.191 for NPC, p= 0.361 for NFV and p= 0.561 for PFV). In conclusion VR-HMD was found to have significant effect on certain occulomotor functions.