New Clinical Study on NeuroEyeCoach Conclusively Supports Meaningful Improvement in Eye Movement Efficiency

BOCA RATON, Florida, September 28, 2016

Vycor Medical, Inc. ("Vycor") (OTCQB-VYCO) reports that a new peer-reviewed study published in "BioMed Research International" shows improvements in visual search following the use of NovaVision's NeuroEyeCoach. The three-centre study was conducted by the School of Psychology of University of Aberdeen, the Neuromotor and Cognitive Rehabilitation Research Centre of University of Verona, and the Department of Psychology of University of Munich. The Paper concludes that NeuroEyeCoach is an effective compensatory approach for those with homonymous visual field loss. The training led to faster visual search times, reduction in the number of errors made, and improvements in reported activities of daily living.

Professor Arash Sahraie, Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Aberdeen commenting on the findings stated "It's important to develop techniques to help patients to compensate for their sight deficits and NeuroEyeCoach is providing a much needed step forward in providing therapy for these patients. We have used this type of compensatory technique in vision research for some time now and we value the importance of developing the existing vision in order to improve the quality of life for the individual.  In NeuroEyeCoach, we have developed the research into an accessible treatment that can help patients achieve major improvements in their vision within about 2-3 weeks."

The PC-based treatment approach, which was originally developed in 1988/1990 by Professor Zihl, a co-author of this study, forms the basis of NeuroEyeCoach and was used with various modifications in 14 studies with a total of 591 patients with homonymous visual field loss. The main outcome of these studies has been a significant improvement in visual search performance accompanied by more efficient oculomotor strategies, and a reduction in visual disability as assessed with standardized questionnaires and behavioural measures. The treatment effects remained stable and persist after 4-12 weeks follow up. This new study shows that NeuroEyeCoach leads to a comparable level of improvement as that reported in the above-mentioned 14 studies, showing significantly increased eye movement efficiency. NeuroEyeCoach was developed with the aim of providing a standardized protocol for clinical management of patients using a compensatory technique. Task difficulty is systematically increased, and the program is self-adaptive to the individual performance level.

Other than use of visual search tasks in various forms in a limited number of rehabilitation clinics over the past 25 years, there has been a marked lack of availability of an effective evidence-based gold-standard registered medical device accessible to patients at home or in clinical settings. The void has hitherto been filled by the use of a number of devices or programs that originally had been designed to address other problems, hence being sub-optimum for rehabilitation of vision loss. All the other devices currently being marketed do not have a set of systematically developed protocols, specific to visually impaired patients. NeuroEyeCoach was designed to address this void and can be viewed as being the first evidence based gold standard registered medical device accessible to patients at home or in clinical settings

It is important to note that visual field borders did not change after the treatment, indicating that visual search training represents a compensatory technique and not a restorative approach unlike NovaVision's Vision Restoration Therapy (VRT) and Neuro-Eye Therapy (NeET). The two therapy types address different visual disabilities each of which results from neurologically-induced vision loss - a loss of visual field as well as difficulty with eye movement, affecting the ability to integrate visual information. VRT and NeET provide partial restoration of the patient's lost visual field; NeuroEyeCoach is designed to increase the efficiency of eye movement and re-train the patients' ability to integrate visual information between the left and right hand side.  

Commenting on the Company's announcement, Peter Zachariou, CEO of Vycor, stated: "NovaVision's therapies are underpinned by the fundamental concept of "evidence based medicine". Our products are not aimed at producing non-specific general effects, but designed to target specific visual disorders resulting from neurological brain damage. NeuroEyeCoach is specifically designed to help improve scanning and eye movement efficiency in patients with visual field deficits. This study through its rigorous analysis helps underscore the merits of the NeuroEyeCoach therapy to the large number of patients who have suffered a vision disorder as a result of neurological brain damage."