A Rice University mobileVision system monitors eye health and spots signs of macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.The patient-operated, portable device can be paired with a smartphone to give clinicians finely detailed images of the macula – the spot in the center of the eye where vision is sharpest, without artificially dilating the pupil. The images are then sent by smartphone to ophthalmologists who can make their diagnoses remotely.
The device was built as part of Rice’s Scalable Health Initiative, an effort to create portable, robust, and inexpensive diagnostic tools for low-resource areas around the world.
The prototype works like a reverse microscope. A patient looks into the eyepiece and sees a large dark red disk. When the system is shifted around freely, the appearance of the disk changes dramatically – appearing brightest and most uniform when perfectly aligned with the patient’s eye. When this happens, the patient hits a button that moves the target out of the way and allows the camera to see into the eye and illuminate the retina, with help from a battery-powered light source.
In the Rice lab, mobileVision is connected to a small camera and tied to a computer. In the field, however, a cell phone would capture video and break it down into a series of still images that can be analyzed and enhanced.
