Patients with glaucoma display lower saccade latency in face detection
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Saccade latencies were significantly lower in patients with glaucoma compared with controls when asked to detect a face in large image scenes with eccentricities higher than 40 degrees.
“The present study was designed to assess visual perception at eccentricities larger than those classically measured by automatic standard perimetry and seldom explored in experimental studies,” Muriel Boucart, PhD, from the University of Lille in France, and colleagues wrote.
The study involved 12 patients with glaucoma and 14 control participants. All participants underwent SITA-standard 30-2 perimetry on a Humphrey visual field analyzer (Carl Zeiss Meditec).
The stimuli consisted of 275 gray-level photographs of human faces from various ethnic groups and 400 photographs of various objects — including animals, vehicles, plants and buildings — in scenes without humans faces.
Accuracy of facial recognition decreased (P < .009) and saccade latencies increased (P < .03) as eccentricity increased among the patients compared with the controls.
The researchers also found that age correlated with saccade latency at eccentricity degrees of 40 (P < .05), 60 (P < .05) and 80 (P < .05); however, age did not correlate with accuracy. Older patients exhibited longer saccade latencies as eccentricity increased, whereas there was no correlation between age and saccade latency among controls.
“This study shows that tests that examine the peripheral visual field beyond the range of static perimetry may provide relevant information both for clinicians and for patients,” Boucart and colleagues wrote.
The researchers reported a small sample size as a study limitation and suggested that future studies could include groups of patients at different stages of disease, and that colored images might capture attention better than achromatic images.
Perspective
Back to Top
We are all aware of peripheral vision loss glaucoma, but as clinicians our attention has been directed to the central and near peripheral field. Boucart and colleagues studied vision beyond 40 degrees from fixation and found that glaucoma patients suffer loss in their far peripheral visual field as well. Will we see a new far peripheral field test in clinic? No, we won’t.
Our current glaucoma monitoring system is sound and sufficient. Having said that, I’m happy to learn more about how glaucoma affects vision. We should discuss activities such as driving with our patients and understand that they may be unaware of deficits that could impede function. What we really need in glaucoma care are better and more efficient ways to control this disease. Here’s hoping a breakthrough in our understanding of glaucoma will lead to treatments that take us beyond IOP lowering. One can hope.
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts