The Impact of Self-reported Visual Disability on Quality of Life among Older Persons in a Rural Area of Northeast Thailand: A Follow-up Study

A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted to follow-up an earlier study which estimated the prevalence of self-reported visual disability and its impact on the quality of life (QOL) of older persons living in a rural area of Northeast Thailand based on a secondary analysis of data collected for another purpose. Self-reported difficulty with seeing was used to determine prevalence of visual disability. The WHOQOL-BREF and WHOQOL-OLD were used to assess the impact of visual disability on QOL. Fifty nine percent reported having difficulty seeing to the extent that it interfered with their daily life. Those who reported having difficulty with seeing were found to be older, disproportionately female, have lower perception of health, and to score lower on QOL than those who did not. The findings of this study differed from the earlier study. It is asserted that the findings from this latter study are likely to be more representative of the situation due to the use of a more systematic and targeted sampling procedure

The Impact of Self-reported Visual Disability on Quality of Life among Older Persons in a Rural Area of Northeast Thailand: A Follow-up Study

A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted to follow-up an earlier study which estimated the prevalence of self-reported visual disability and its impact on the quality of life (QOL) of older persons living in a rural area of Northeast Thailand based on a secondary analysis of data collected for another purpose. Self-reported difficulty with seeing was used to determine prevalence of visual disability. The WHOQOL-BREF and WHOQOL-OLD were used to assess the impact of visual disability on QOL. Fifty nine percent reported having difficulty seeing to the extent that it interfered with their daily life. Those who reported having difficulty with seeing were found to be older, disproportionately female, have lower perception of health, and to score lower on QOL than those who did not. The findings of this study differed from the earlier study. It is asserted that the findings from this latter study are likely to be more representative of the situation due to the use of a more systematic and targeted sampling procedure

Evaluation of cholinergic deficiency in preclinical Alzheimer\u27s disease using pupillometry

Cortical cholinergic deficiency is prominent in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and published findings of diminished pupil flash response in AD suggest that this deficiency may extend to the visual cortical areas and anterior eye. Pupillometry is a low-cost, noninvasive technique that may be useful for monitoring cholinergic deficits which generally lead to memory and cognitive disorders. The aim of the study was to evaluate pupillometry for early detection of AD by comparing the pupil flash response (PFR) in AD (N=14) and cognitively normal healthy control (HC, N=115) participants, with the HC group stratified according to high (N=38) and low (N=77) neocortical amyloid burden (NAB). Constriction phase PFR parameters were significantly reduced in AD compared to HC (maximum acceleration p \u3c 0.05, maximum velocity p \u3c 0.0005, average velocity p \u3c 0.005, and constriction amplitude p \u3c 0.00005). The high-NAB HC subgroup had reduced PFR response cross-sectionally, and also a greater decline longitudinally, compared to the low-NAB subgroup, suggesting changes to pupil response in preclinical AD. The results suggest that PFR changes may occur in the preclinical phase of AD. Hence, pupillometry has a potential as an adjunct for noninvasive, cost-effective screening for preclinical AD

Retinal Image Registration and Comparison for Clinical Decision Support

Background For eye diseases, such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), involved in long-term degeneration procedure, longitudinal comparison of retinal images is a common step for reliable diagnosis of these kinds of diseases. Aims To provide a retinal image registration approach for longitudinal retinal image alignment and comparison. Method Two image registration solutions were proposed for facing different image qualities of retinal images to make the registration methods more robust and feasible in a clinical application system. Results Thirty pairs of longitudinal retinal images were used for the registration test. The experiments showed both solutions provided good performance for the accurate image registrations with efficiency. Conclusion We proposed a set of retinal image registration solutions for longitudinal retinal image observation and comparison targeting a clinical application environment

Changes in chromatin structure during processing of wax-embedded tissue sections

The use of immunofluorescence (IF) and fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) underpins much of our understanding of how chromatin is organised in the nucleus. However, there has only recently been an appreciation that these types of study need to move away from cells grown in culture and towards an investigation of nuclear organisation in cells in situ in their normal tissue architecture. Such analyses, however, especially of archival clinical samples, often requires use of formalin-fixed paraffin wax-embedded tissue sections which need addition steps of processing prior to IF or FISH. Here we quantify the changes in nuclear and chromatin structure that may be caused by these additional processing steps. Treatments, especially the microwaving to reverse fixation, do significantly alter nuclear architecture and chromatin texture, and these must be considered when inferring the original organisation of the nucleus from data collected from wax-embedded tissue sections

The reengineering of a software system for glaucoma analysis

Glaucoma is a destructive eye disease that causes blindness in individuals displaying little or no symptoms. There is no cure as yet though there are treatments that can arrest its effects or slow its development. The earlier the disease is detected, the more likely the treatment will be successful; however early detection of the disease can be difficult. This highlights the importance of ophthalmologists having access to tools that can assist in accurately diagnosing glaucoma and other retinal diseases as early as possible. The stereo optic disc analyser (SODA) software package is a tool intended to be used by ophthalmologists, to aid in the accurate detection of retinal diseases. SODA will use stereoscopy and three-dimensional image analysis to assist in accurately detecting changes in the retina, caused by diseases such as glaucoma. This paper will focus on the reengineering and redesign of the SODA software package to overcome the shortcomings inherent in its prototype implementation and develop a package that can be commercialised. Software Engineering principles and the software development lifecycle, along with principles of object-orientation and usability, have been used to establish a framework for SODA, improve its accuracy, enhance its usability and to redevelop the product into an implementation that can later be commercialised