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July 01, 2010

Mobile Phone Accessory Provides Inexpensive Vision Tests


MIT's (News - Alert) Media Lab will soon start clinical trials on a mobile health care innovation that can transform a cell phone into a sophisticated eye-testing device, using an inexpensive snap-on plastic accessory. Preliminary testing of Netra (Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment) suggests it compares well to the standard aberrometer test, making it 'especially suitable for remote, developing-world locations that lack these expensive systems.'

Uncorrected refractive errors are the world's second-highest cause of blindness, affecting 2 percent of the world's population, according to the World Health Organization. Manuel Oliveira, one of the developers, believes the mobile vision-testing device 'has the potential to make routine refractive eye exams simpler and cheaper, and, therefore, more accessible to millions of people in developing countries.'

All the system requires is the cellphone software and the plastic device, which could cost only pennies per unit if produced in large quantities. The patient looks into a small lens, and presses the phone's arrow keys until various sets of parallel green and red lines just overlap. The test takes under two minutes, and at the conclusion, the software provides the prescription data.

The group intends to launch production as the company PerfectSight, initially targeting locations in Africa and Asia.  There may also be a more advanced version of the device which could be marketed in the developed world. Via MIT News
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