DOI: 10.3886/e205143v1
title: Community Access for Remote Eyesight (CARE)

description: Study is a randomized clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of novel mobile application technologies (including Seeing AI, Aira, and Supervision+) to improve quality of life in older adults with low vision by expanding community access and providing assistance with activities of daily living. Aira provides real-time remote personal assistance through a sighted Aira agent supplying direct feedback to assist with visual tasks. Seeing AI provides optical character recognition allowing any text to be read aloud, color identification, bar code reading, scene description, and facial recognition based on stored photos. Supervision + allows one to use the phone as a magnifier, providing magnification and contrast enhancement using the camera of the mobile phone. This study seeks to understand the potential of these technologies to improve daily activities, community participation, independence, and self-sufficiency in this group by examining a technological approach, which has not yet undergone rigorous investigation in a diverse population of older adults with visual impairment. Project objectives are to evaluate mobile applications in a wide range of visual disability, categorized into three groups: (1) mild to moderate visual acuity loss, (2) severe to profound visual acuity loss, and (3) legal blindness secondary to visual field loss. Participants are randomized to one of three intervention groups: (1) Supervision+ application, (2) Aira application, or (3) Seeing AI application for a period of 6 months. For the Aira intervention group, participants will be assigned either with 'restricted' access (current open access areas plus 30 minutes/month anywhere), or 'unrestricted' access (700 minutes), for a period of 3 months with a 3 month cross-over period. Participants may elect to continue the study for an additional 3 months during which time they have access to all 3 study mobile applications. Outcome measures include assessment of changes at three, six and nine months post-intervention for: visual ability, health state (including depression), self-efficacy, loneliness, life space, distances travelled from the home, and types of services obtained.
description: N/A
description: Response Rates: Out of 227 patients who met the inclusion criteria and were asked to participate in the CARE project, 147 (65%) were enrolled and 80 (35%) declined. The main reasons for declining were transportation and time constraints (30%), not interested in research (27.5%) and not comfortable interacting with technology (11%).
description: Presence of Common Scales: Likert-type scales from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree" and "always" to "never" were used. Certain instruments used questions that were answered "yes" and "no".<br><br>
description: Patients 55 years or older receiving low vision care at the JanetLa Breck Low Vision Rehabiliation at NECO Center for Eye Care, the Carroll Center for the Blind, and at the Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and who filled certain inclusion criteria, were asked to participate.
description: Individuals over the age of 55 living with visual impairment. .
description: cognitive assessment test; telephone interview;