RightEye Receives FDA Clearance for Visual Impairment Detecting System

RightEye, a Maryland-based tech company, has recently received 510(k) clearance from the FDA for its eye-tracking system that’s intended to track and evaluate visual impairments. The system, EyeQ, uses a portable computer to allow users to undergo several visual training and diagnostic programs that both analyze one’s eye motions and create a report with results and treatment options. RightEye has reportedly raised $10.4 million in funding for its system, created in collaboration with visual motion company Tobii.

EyeQ currently targets four areas of visual impairments, those being sports vision, reading, functional vision, and training and brain health. The sports vision function of EyeQ aims to analyze and assess athlete’s visual cues to improve the performance of athletes at all levels, with one of RightEye’s major partners being Major League Baseball. Reading assessments involve analyzing children’s eye movement skills, depth perception, ocular motion, binocularity, and basic reading skills and comprehension. The functional components of EyeQ screen users on skills essential to daily activities, including walking up and down stairs, as well as visual components of driving. The latter of the four programs, brain health, aims to provide patients with extensive information regarding their brain activities and to detect possible neurological defects, such as those tethered to Parkinson’s Disease. Aspects analyzed in these tests include reaction time, circular, horizontal, and vertical pursuits, and vertical saccades.

RightEye’s EyeQ can track results over extended periods of time to generate graphs, metrics and replays of eye movements to yield long-term results. This data provides analysis of potential visual defects that can be challenging to diagnose with traditional visual diagnostic methods.

RightEye states that its program aims to target conditions that commonly are unnoticed by physicians, claiming that 50% of visual defects in children are not diagnosed due to similar traits being associated with learning disabilities. Complications such as bad handwriting, poor attention span, and letter reversals are often tied to these learning disabilities, and not considered to be indicative of visual impairment.

Two years ago, the company received exclusive rights to eye motion tests identifying both autism in children from 12 to 40 months old, and Parkinson’s disease in patients of various ages. In June of 2017, RightEye released a game designed to bolster visual-motor control in young children with reading disabilities.

In addition to the MLB, RightEye is currently working with other sports teams, hospitals, rehab clinics, optometry offices, and the US Military to enhance visual skills and detect defects.

“The RightEye system has been an asset to my practice for its ability to help identify conditions that may have otherwise gone unnoticed,” said Adam Clarin, an optometrist at Clarin Eye Care. “The FDA clearance adds an extra layer of confidence for my patients and my practice. The quick and easy-to-administer tests, coupled with the objective and quantifiable reports, not only guides my decision on the type of treatment to recommend but also makes it simple to explain issues to patients and parents.”

RightEye’s EyeQ system uses eye-tracking to uncover brain injury https://t.co/DibbSMxbcB

— Engadget (@engadget) January 8, 2018

Sources: MedCity News, MobiHealth News