Smart Devices in Optometry: Current and Future Perspectives to Clinical Optometry.

There is a huge unmet need for eye care with more than a hundred million people living without basic eye care services and facilities. There is an exigency to deploy adequate resources in terms of manpower and equipment to address this. The usage of smart devices in optometry and eye care practice has been gaining momentum for last half a decade, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and technological advancements in telemedicine.

Accommodative Facility and Response Time before and after Computer Task of Varying Durations in Young Adults.

Aim: To investigate the changes in near accommodative facility and response time in young adults following computer work of 30 minutes and 1 hour in duration.

Methods: A total of 50 young adults (37 females, 13 males) with mean age of 20.68 ± 1.

Associations between Accommodative Facility, Age, and Refractive Errors in Early, Older Adolescent Myopes and Emmetropes.

Background: Accommodative functions are known to differ between myopes and emmetropes. It is not known whether accommodative facility differs at near between younger adolescent and older adolescent myopes and emmetropes.

Aim: To examine whether accommodative facility differs at near between younger and older adolescent myopes and emmetropes.

Development of smart spectacles to monitor and modify myopia-related health behaviour in children.

Purpose: To develop a wearable, spectacle-mounted, sensor-based device to monitor and modify myopia risk factors in children, namely near-working distance, light levels and spectral composition.

Methods: A wearable, spectacle-mounted device has been developed, which consists of inbuilt sensors, namely: (i) light sensor to detect ambient light intensity; (ii) proximity sensor to measure near-work distance; (iii) microspectrograph to measure spectral power for six visible channels, namely red, green, blue, yellow, orange and violet and (iv) a global positioning system tracker to track the location and the device. The sensors were programmed by Arduino Nano, and the circuit was fixed onto a printed circuit board fitted onto a spectacle frame for pilot testing.

Development of the FitSight Fitness Tracker to Increase Time Outdoors to Prevent Myopia.

Purpose: To develop a fitness tracker (FitSight) to encourage children to increase time spent outdoors. To evaluate the wear pattern for this tracker and outdoor time pattern by estimating light illumination levels among children.

Methods: The development of the FitSight fitness tracker involved the designing of two components: (1) the smartwatch with custom-made FitSight watch application (app) to log the instant light illuminance levels the wearer is exposed to, and (2) a companion smartphone app that synchronizes the time outdoors recorded by the smartwatch to smartphone via Bluetooth communication.

A review of environmental risk factors for myopia during early life, childhood and adolescence.

Myopia is a significant public health problem worldwide, particularly in East Asian countries. The increasing prevalence of myopia poses a huge socio-economic burden and progressive high myopia can lead to sight-threatening ocular complications. Hence, the prevention of early-onset myopia progressing to pathological high myopia is important.

Development of Pocket Vision Screener and its effectiveness at screening visual acuity deficits.

Aim: The aim was to construct a visual acuity chart and find its effectiveness at screening visual acuity deficits.

Materials And Methods: Two phases were involved in this study.Construction of the screener: Ten Sloan letters (C, D, H, K, N, O, R, S, V, and Z) were selected and the letters were constructed and reduced to 0.

Risk factors for strabismus and amblyopia in young Singapore Chinese children.

Purpose: To determine the risk factors for strabismus and amblyopia in young Singapore Chinese children.

Methods: A total of 3009 children were recruited for the population-based cross-sectional Strabismus, Amblyopia and Refractive Error in Singaporean Preschoolers Study (STARS). Strabismus was defined as any tropia identified on cover test.

Does sunlight (bright lights) explain the protective effects of outdoor activity against myopia?

In the following point-counterpoint article, internationally-acclaimed myopia researchers were challenged to defend the two opposing sides of the topic defined by the title; their contributions, which appear in the order, Point followed by Counterpoint, were peer-reviewed by both the editorial team and an external reviewer. Independently of the invited authors, the named member of the editorial team provided an Introduction and Summary, both of which were reviewed by the other members of the editorial team. By their nature, views expressed in each section of the Point-Counterpoint article are those of the author concerned and may not reflect the views of all of the authors.

Worldwide prevalence and risk factors for myopia.

Background: Myopia, the most common type of refractive error, is a complex trait including both genetic and environmental factors. Numerous studies have tried to elucidate the aetiology of myopia. However, the exact aetiology of myopia is still unclear.