A Low-Cost Electro-oculogram (EoG) Based System For Ophthalmology

Abstract

Eye diseases are highly prevalent in Uganda. If left untreated, these diseases usually lead to bilateral visual impairment or blindness. In fact, 0.19% of Uganda’s population is blind, and 1.1% of the population has moderate to severe blindness. Common conditions in Uganda include cataract, refractive error, macular degeneration, glaucoma, and corneal opacity. Unfortunately, Uganda does not have enough ophthalmologists (1 per 1 million) and screening equipment for diagnosis of eye diseases. Most diagnostic exams are manual and rudimentary. Therefore, some conditions remain undetected and potentially escalate. To address this need, our work focused on development of a low-cost electro-oculogram (EoG), a device that can be used to investigate abnormalities of the retina (both the outermost layer and the retinal pigment epithelium), allowing diagnosis of macular diseases.) We designed and built the hardware for the system. This was followed by implementation of an algorithm for noise removal from the EoG signal and an algorithm for diagnosis of disease based on eye movement and the Arden ratio. We then integrated the hardware and software components into a functional prototype and evaluated the system on healthy volunteers. We compared our results to results expected from Optical Coherence Tomography for healthy individuals, obtained from literature. In our future work, we will improve our system design and undertake clinical validation of the system.