New smartphone app in development to help track vision changes

Developers are working on a new smartphone app called myVisionTrack which will help monitor patients who have glaucoma, macular degeneration and other degenerative eye diseases. Currently, there are more than 13 million Americans suffering from a degenerative eye disease. The phone app will show three circles on the screen and the patient will touch the odd-shaped circle which will become more subtle as the patient continues to click. Any changes in vision are documented and an alert is sent to the doctor. During the clinical trial, ophthalmologists took retinal images of the participants' eyes and compared the results to the readings taken by the cell phone application and the cell phone readings were just as accurate. The cell phone readings had the two advantages of being much cheaper and faster. Elise Ervin Staff Writer