Purpose:
To compare the time taken to complete activities of daily livingbetween glaucoma and normal control subjects.
Methods:
20 control and 99 glaucoma patients underwent testing to determinethe time taken to complete a variety of activities of dailyliving (ADLs) tested by the Assessment of Ability Related toVision (AARV). Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) compared thetime taken for each of the 8 ADLs tested between the glaucomaand control subjects, while controlling a range of covariates.Receiver-Operator Curve (ROC) analysis was utilized to determinethe sensitivity and specificity of time for ADL completion asa discriminating factor between glaucoma and normal controlsubjects.
Results:
ANCOVA analysis indicated that glaucoma subjects required moretime to complete 5 of 8 ADLs in comparison to control subjects,independent of age, gender, ethnicity and total number of medicalcomorbidities (Table I). However, the ROC analysis indicatedthat these differences had only moderate sensitivity and specificitywhen differentiating glaucoma subjects from controls (TableII).
Conclusions:
Glaucoma patients are more likely to take additional time toperform ADLs in comparison to normal controls; however, performance-basedmeasures of visual function should not rely exclusively on thetime required for completion when evaluating the ability ofglaucoma patients to complete ADLs as it has only moderate sensitivityand specificity.
Keywords: visual search • face perception • detection