Follow on to: Preventing avoidable blindness through smart home-monitoring of vision

青光眼是导致不可逆性失明的第二大原因。40岁以上的人中每50人中就有1人受到影响，目前所有人都必须每年前往医院进行一到两次视力检查。NHS每年进行100多万次这样的“监测”评估。这些医院的就诊不仅不方便，而且是不可持续的。甚至在COVID之前，NHS的积压意味着每月有20名患者因青光眼预约延迟而失明，预计到2030年患者数量将翻一番。对于最具侵袭性的青光眼，每23人中就有1人仅在医院进行监测也是不够的。这些人很容易在两次就诊之间突然发生不可逆转的失明。解决办法是在家中进行监控。如果人们可以在家里检查自己的视力，那么视力损失就可以更快、更方便、更便宜地被检测出来。人们可以选择更频繁地检查自己的视力，或者当他们开始注意到变化时：允许更早地标记和治疗视力丧失。风险较低的患者可以少去医院就诊：减少不必要的旅行，并腾出资源专注于最有需要的人。通过在家里测试视力，可以在诊所里花更多的时间与医生面对面交谈。这就是为什么在过去的八年里，我们开发了Eyecatcher：世界上第一个经过验证的青光眼家庭监测视力测试。现在的挑战是扩大Eyecatcher的规模，并以可持续、低成本的方式将Eyecatcher送到患者手中。我们将利用这些现有资金将Eyecatcher从一个学术项目转变为一个可持续的商业项目。

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of irreversible blindness. It affects 1 in 50 people over 40 years old, all of whom must currently travel to hospital once or twice a year for vision checks. Over 1M such "monitoring" assessments are carried out by the NHS every year.These hospital visits are not only inconvenient: they are unsustainable. Even before COVID, NHS backlogs meant that twenty patients a month were going blind due to delayed glaucoma appointments, and patient numbers are expected to double by 2030. Hospital-only monitoring is also insufficient for the 1 in 23 people with the most aggressive form of glaucoma. Such individuals are liable to experience sudden, irreversible sight loss between hospital appointments.The solution is home-monitoring. If people could check their own vision at home, then sight loss could be detected more quickly, conveniently, and cheaply. People could choose to test their vision more frequently, or when they started to notice a change: allowing sight loss to be flagged and treated sooner. Lower risk patients could attend fewer hospital appointments: reducing unnecessary travel, and freeing up resources to focus on those most in need. And by testing vision at home, more time in the clinic could be spent talking to the doctor face-to-face.That is why over the last eight years we have developed Eyecatcher: the world's first validated vision test for glaucoma home-monitoring. The challenge now is to scale up Eyecatcher, and get it into the hands of patients, in a sustainable, cost-effective way.We will use these present funds to translate Eyecatcher from an academic project to a sustainable, commercial venture.