▲ Professor Dong-Wha Kang

Asan Medical Center has recently started officially prescribing the digital therapeutic, VIVID Brain, for patients who have visual impairment caused by stroke.

VIVID Brain, developed by Professor Dong-Wha Kang of the Department of Neurology and his team, is a digital therapeutic device designed to improve the ability to recognize visual information through repetitive training on visual stimuli. It is the third digital therapeutic device in South Korea to be approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in April. Patients receive treatment for 12 weeks using a VR device and mobile application. The idea is to enhance visual sensitivity through continuous learning of perceptual abilities related to visual stimuli and promote brain plasticity, which refers to the brain’s flexibility and adaptability, helping to awaken the dormant areas around the stroke-affected regions.

▲ Professor Dong-Wha Kang is explaining the visual perception training methods and therapeutic benefits of the digital therapeutic device, VIVID Brain, to a stroke patient experiencing visual impairment.

To analyze the patterns of visual impairment varying among patients, VIVID Brain goes through a visual perception evaluation process to determine the optimal training location. It then customizes treatment for each patient by automatically adjusting the difficulty level according to the training progress.

Professor Kang stated, “VIVID Brain is the first digital therapeutic device with proven effectiveness for visual field defects, for which there is no existing treatment. We hope VIVID Brain will become the standard of care in treating visual field defects, contributing to an improved quality of life for many patients worldwide.”