Foveation window measured with clinical EOG and its relevance to actual visual acuity in infantile nystagmus

Abstract

Abstract: : Purpose: We investigated the relevance of the foveation window measured with clinical EOG to actual visual acuity (VA) in infantile nystagmus using one of Nystagmus Acuity Functions to evaluate its applicability in clinical EOG settings. Methods: From January 2002 to June 2003, the digitalized EOG of 27 infantile nystagmus patients who showed consistent VA and jerk waveform was reviewed. The foveation window was identified and measured with program using Labview^® without knowing the VA of the patients. From the measured foveation window, we calculated Nystagmus Acuity Estimator Function (NAEF) and compared with the VA of the patients Results: In Pearson correlation analysis, the VA and NAEF showed moderate correlation (coefficient: 0.4266, p value=0.0282) which means with the better value of NAEF, the better VA the patient showed likely. Conclusions: In clinical settings of EOG, the measurement of foveation window and calculation of NAEF of infantile nystagmus patients may have some value of predicting VA especially in the patients who cannot report their VA such as in preverbal children.

Keywords: nystagmus • eye movements: recording techniques • neuro–ophthalmology: diagnosis