How We Watch Television May Ultimately Determine Our Eye Health

Researchers at City University London have discovered that the way we watch television could ultimately determine much of our eye health. In other words, the research mapped out individual eye movements while people watched a film, helping to diagnose the risk of glaucoma.

Researchers discovered that some individuals had cases of undetected glaucoma. 

"These are early results but we've found we can identify patients with glaucoma by monitoring how people watch TV. This could make a huge difference in detecting or monitoring a disease which currently results in one in ten of all blindness registrations in the UK and about a million NHS appointments a year for those with the disease. Once the damage is done it cannot be reversed, so early diagnosis is vital for identifying a disease which will continue to get more prevalent as our population ages," said researcher David Crabb, a professor of Statistics and Vision Research, in a news release.

For the study, they examined a group of 32 elderly people with healthy vision and 44 people with glaucoma. All participants underwent vision examinations and measured disease severity in patients with glaucoma.

Afterward, they were asked to look at three unmodified TV and film clips on a computer as their eye movements were tracked. Mapping helped to detect any symptoms of glaucoma.

"Early diagnosis and treatment can stop people losing their sight, so we're very pleased that this proof-of-principle eye movement study opens the door to developing a new clinical test for glaucoma," added Dr. Dolores M Conroy, Director of Research at Fight for Sight