According to this NY Times article Better Vision, With a Telescope Inside the Eye
“In a brief, …the mini-telescope in one eye in place of its natural lens. The telescope magnifies images on the retina, extending them so they fall on healthy cells outside the damaged macula. … For example, a person who might usually see a blur when looking at a friend’s face might, with the help of the magnified image, see a blur only in the area of the person’s nose or mouth.”
Then they say the other eye is left alone so you can use its peripheral vision to walk.
As I understand it, the condition is like having a big black dot painted on each lens of your glasses. You can’t see straight ahead but you can see to the side. So why is this new telescope still aiming the image at the bad spot? Wouldn’t it be better just to turn your head and look at people peripherally? Or have the telescope aimed at the peripheral retina instead of the dead zone?
Well, first of all the dot-on-the glasses is a poor analogy. You think that you can turn your head and look on the side on the dot. But actually the dot is attached to your eye.
Still you would think about looking slightly away from the item you want to see. But first of all this would be a hell of a think to learn (your brain is totally wired in order to aim your eye straight at the point on whihc you focus your attention to). Also, the fundamental problem is that the visual acuity of the retina drops very quickly as you move away from the center. So you don’t want to move the image of your friend away from the central zone, you want to extend it so that it covers a maximal area around the central zone.