Shape discrimination test on handheld devices for patient self-test

Timely treatment for the patients with early stage diabetic retinopathy (DR) before transition to proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) or diabetic macular edema (DME) depends on detection of symptoms in time. Any test capable of achieving this must be simple, accessible and reliable enough for patients to administer themselves. Shape discrimination test has the potential to allow for timely detection of PDR or DME. Moreover, implementation of this test on handheld devices can present a feasible solution for home self-test of these conditions. The paper presents an iPod/iPhone implementation of the test method and reports initial experimental results. The software solutions include proper UI considerations like simplicity and visual clarity for patients with eye problems, and also the provision for local and remote extraction of test data.