Abstract
Purpose :
Blink frequency and pattern are objective signs that may be may be critical to study of dry eye. Traditional in-office testing may not accurately reflect natural blink patterns over the course of the day. We developed a wearable device (the iBlink® system) that records continuous blink patterns and interfaces with a mobile phone for real time analysis. The aim of this study was to assess whether the system was capable of capturing small changes in blink that are known to occur during various activities.
Methods :
10 normal subjects wore the device while watching TV, reading from a book or laptop, or conversing for 15 mins. Subjects also watched TV for 30 mins inside a controlled adverse environment (CAE®). The experiment was repeated 2 weeks later. Primary outcome was interblink interval (IBI: time between blinks in seconds). Reproducibility was determined by calculating the percent difference in mean IBI within subjects, within activities, and across visits.
Results :
Using the iBlink system, we were able to demonstrate differences in IBI with task, as has been shown with conventional blink assessments: IBI was shorter while watching TV than while reading from a book (p=0.0006) or reading from a laptop (p=0.002). IBI during conversation was also significantly shorter than while watching TV (p=0.007), reading from a book (p=0.00005) or reading from a laptop (p=0.0003). IBI during CAE exposure was significantly shorter than all other activities: TV watching (p=0.00006), reading from a book (p=0.00001), or reading from a laptop (p=0.00003), and during conversation (p=0.01). The average % difference across all activities and subjects was 33.6%, and the variability within a single subject / single activity on separate visits was 34.5%.
Conclusions :
This system was able to measure, in a reproducible fashion, small changes in blink patterns related to visual tasking. This system will be tested further for its functionality in dry eye populations, in conjunction with at-home symptom assessment.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.