Abstract
Purpose :
To investigate the relationship between silent reading performance and visual field defects in patients with glaucoma using the eye tracking system.
Methods :
Fifty glaucoma patients (Group G, mean age: 52.2 ± 11.4 yr) and 20 normal subjects (Group N, mean age: 46.9 ± 17.2 yr) were included in the study. All participants in Group G had early to advanced glaucomatous visual field defects, but had visual acuity that was better than 20/20 in both eye. Participants silently read 3 articles consisting of 607–612 Japanese characters written horizontally while the eye tracking system (Tobii TX300, Tobii Technology, Danderyd, Sweden) monitored and calculated reading duration, fixation time per 100 characters, and mean fixation duration. They were compared with MD values from Humphrey visual field testing (24-2, 10-2 SITA standard) from either the better eye or the worse eye.
Results :
There was statistically significant difference between Groups G and N in mean fixation duration (G, 233.4 msec; N, 215.7 msec; p=0.010). However, no significant differences were noted in reading duration (G, 9.4 sec; N, 8.9 sec; p=0.543) and fixation time (G, 33.0 times; N, 32.7 times; p=0.925). Moreover, significant correlations were observed between HFA10-2 MD and mean fixation duration (R=-0.296, p=0.048) in the better eye, reading duration (R=-0.404, p=0.006), fixation time (R=-0.295, p=0.049) and mean fixation duration (R=-0.321, p=0.032) in the worse eye.
Conclusions :
The severity of visual field defects may influence some aspects of silent reading performance in patients with glaucoma.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.