The National Children's Eye Care Program has produced a mandate to screen the vision of all children by the age of four within the next ten years. This could dramatically effect the treatment of amblyopia and other child development problems, e.g., reading and learning. Vision anomalies are readily corrected at the infant and early adolescent ages. Thus, instruments are needed to provide the screening data such as: refraction/accommodation and strabismus. Ophthonix, Inc. has developed an enabling technology, the Vision Biometry Instrument (VBI), which provides the wavefront sensing, refraction/accommodation, strabismus, and acuity capability integrated into one instrument. The VBI will be inexpensive, easy to operate by non-medical personnel, have structural integrity and by compact and portable. Measurements require about a minute and require no cycloplegic drugs or medical professional. This SBIR proposal is to develop and validate prototype s of the VBI in cooperation with the Department of Psychological Optics of Schepens Research Institute. Accuracy and reproducibility of the VBI will be assessed on a small population of adult volunteers before clinical prototype development and extended clinical trial will be commenced in Phase II.
