Aston University head of optometry, Professor James Wolffsohn, has led the development of a new, research-based digital health app for eyecare clinicians to manage childhood myopia.
The Predicting Myopia Onset and Progression Risk Indicator (PreMO) app was developed in collaboration with researchers at Ulster University, led by optometry division head Professor Kathryn Saunders. Research at Ulster University has shown that myopia is now twice as common as it was 50 years ago and that children are becoming myopic at a younger age. Higher levels of myopia are associated with sight-threatening eye disease later in life.
PreMO uses a data-driven approach to guide clinicians, patients and their caregivers through the process to manage myopia, including before it occurs. Clinicians can add a child’s details to the app, including age, sex, family history, refractive error, and biometry (axial length or k-values), and the app will generate individual, easy-to-understand reports that can be shared with patients and their caregivers. The reports are designed to provide a visual aid to prompt conversations around managing myopia risks.
The app can also identify younger patients who are at risk of myopia, even when they are not yet shortsighted. Once identified, clinicians can use the app as an education tool and work with caregivers to encourage lifestyles that minimise the risk and explain the treatments available, such as myopia control spectacles and contact lenses.
Clinicians can store and review patient data to review the progression of myopia over time and following treatment.
The launch of PreMO coincides with World Sight Day 2023, an international day sponsored by the International Agency for the Prevention Blindness in cooperation with the World Health Organisation.
Professor Wolffsohn said: “After many years of research into the impact of myopia, we now have treatments to slow its progression and even decrease how often it occurs. The app will support clinicians in predicting those children who will go myopic, to track their progress with myopia control treatments, to provide better communication to the child and their parents and guardians, and to personalise their eye health.”
Professor Saunders commented: “Myopia is predicted to affect half the world’s population by 2050 and the World Health Organisation has declared myopia a global health concern, which was a key factor in the rationale behind creating this specialist software, as it will have a significant impact on helping to prevent or delay the onset of myopia.”
PreMO is available free to eyecare clinicians here.
Watch a video of how the app works here.