| Summary: | Aim: We tested whether prism fusion range (PFR) could be improved by training and whether any improvement in PFR also led to improvement in stereo-acuity. Methods: The PFR and stereo-acuity thresholds of 15 participants with normal or corrected-to-normal vision were tested intially then at 1 week and 5 weeks. Eight of the participants, the experimental group, were instructed in training their base-in and base-out near prism fusion at home for 10 minutes twice each day for 1 week. Seven participants, the control group, were simply tested on three occasions without training. Results: For the experimental group after 1 week both near and distant PFR had significantly improved, by over 10∆ compared with the control group. Stereo-acuity had improved significantly but modestly by about 3 sec arc. However, 4 weeks later, during which no further training occurred, both PFR and stereo-acuity were no longer significantly different between the groups. Conclusions: Although in visually normal participants training of near PFR can lead to improvement in near and distant PFR and stereo-acuity, in the longer term no differences were found between the trained group and a control group who were untrained. These results emphasise the importance of including for comparison a non-treatment group in such studies.
|
|---|