MIT smartphone clip-on will detect a eye cataract using the iPod / iPhone or your Phone
[dropcap]R[/dropcap]esearchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on an inexpensive way to use smart phones to quickly detect early-stage cataracts, the clouding of the eye lens that is the leading cause of blindness worldwide.
Dubbed the “Catra” system this ingenious device which uses all off the shelf components, was designed by Media Lab Camera Culture group director Ramesh Raskar and colleagues.
The user peeps through the eyepiece attached to the smartphone or iPod (in the image) and views a bunch of lines on the screen. If the lines appear cloudy, the user presses a button and the inbuilt scanner scans and maps the eye for cloudy patches. This data is then displayed on the screen of the used Phone / iPod.
Identifying the position, size, shape, and density of the clouds, Catra can produce a diagnosis of cataracts in minutes. Check out the promo video below. Catra has been tested on 22 people, and it found one case of cataracts that had been undiagnosed, despite an eye test at a doctor’s office a few months prior, according to MIT.
“Catra could provide great value as a simple and low-cost way of making the initial diagnosis that cataracts are present, especially in parts of the developing world where such services are now rare and often require travel to distant cities,” an MIT statement said.
[Read at MIT ]
