Side Vision Awareness Glasses

Does your lack of side vision leave you missing out? Afraid of accidents or walking into people? Concerned about your safety? There is help…

Side Vision Awareness Glasses™ (SVAG) were developed by Dr. Errol Rummel, an optometric physician, after years of treating people with stroke-related, or brain injury related hemianopsia (side vision loss). Dr. Rummel is a Fellow Emeritus of the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association, and has had years of experience in private practice and as consultant in neuro-optometric rehabilitation at leading New Jersey rehabilitation hospitals.

Having designed and prescribed hundreds of optical systems to expand side vision, he realized a more effective optical field expansion device was needed, and that a detailed system was necessary for doctors to learn how to accurately examine, prescribe, and instruct a patient in using such a device. He learned what worked and what didn’t work, and designed an advanced optical technology called SVAG (Side Vision Awareness Glasses) and devised a protocol to be used by doctors in order to effectively examine and prescribe the special glasses for those with hemianopsia.

SVAG have important advantages over previous attempts to develop field expansion:

• SVAG have optically clear lenses, without the distracting aberrations or blur of press-on prism systems.
• They are a cosmetically acceptable lens system, without an obvious thick round prism button inserted through the front of the lens, and without obvious Fresnel prism strips inserted through the front surface of the lens.
• Thanks to better contrast sensitivity than found with Fresnel-lens based glasses, SVAG provide improved vision.
• SVAG have the widest viewing area, allowing better field awareness in the direction of the hemianopsia than button lens systems. And because SVAG have a vertical edge, the person with hemianopsia just needs to move their eyes a couple of millimeters to get into the SVAG area of the lens, instead of having to travel past the curve of a button lens in order to find the widest possible viewing area.
• SVAG are easy for people to use because they don’t superimpose a confusing narrow band of peripheral vision above, or above and below, a person’s central vision, which can be difficult to learn to use.
• SVAG look more like regular glasses, because the SVAG lens line is barely noticeable.
•  SVAG have the advantage of having been used successfully for years by hundreds of happy patients, and can only be prescribed by eye doctors trained in the Rummel Side Vision Awareness Glasses System.

Hemianopsia can leave people disoriented, insecure, and struggling to make it through the day. In addition there are hemianopsia-related safety issues, such as bumping into furniture, walking into people at the mall, falling off a curb, and difficulty performing other activities of daily living. SVAG can give those with hemianopsia more freedom, independence, and safety. Using SVAG may even allow some of those with hemianopsia to return to driving (which may require special on-the-road testing and Motor Vehicle Department approval, depending on state law).