Street simulations to combat falls

By 2050, the number of people over 65 will have tripled worldwide and around one in three living at home will have at least one fall per year, according to the UK’s National Health Service. At the Vision Institute in Paris, Professor José-Alain Sahel and Emmanuel Gutmann have developed a unique platform called StreetLab to reproduce naturalistic situations to assess and help improve the autonomy and mobility of visually impaired people and seniors. Dr Angelo Arleo, winner of the 2020 Silmo Academy Award and head of the Aging in Vision and Action laboratory, uses StreetLab for gathering and evaluating detailed mobility-related data from subjects in a controlled environment. We sent Drew Jones to ask Dr Arleo about his research and what the implications are for eyecare professionals.