Market Assessment of Eye Tracking Technique/Tool |
Market Assessment and Product Information
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The University of Aberdeen has appointed Frontline, a research and consultancy agency to conduct a market assessment for an eye movement tool to inform the diagnostic process for Schizophrenia and related disorders.
As part of this, we are seeking the views of industry, clinicians and researchers to gain their perspectives on the tool. The information below provides a brief overview of the eye movement tool and its future development to inform your thinking when considering the survey questions.
If you experience any technical difficulties or have any general queries regarding this market assessment please contact Julia Chim on 07974 714152 or Zoe Awty on 07917 834352.
Introduction
Major psychiatric disorders are the largest cause of disability worldwide. In contrast to other branches of medicine there are currently no non symptom based diagnostic tests for any of the major psychiatric disorders encountered in clinical practice; diagnosis is made solely on patient history, signs and symptoms.
Product overview
SACCADE is a series of eye movement tests that are administered to patients. When these are compared to eye movements from a large reference database from patients with major psychiatric disorders and normal controls it is possible to give a diagnostic probability with exceptional sensitivity and specificity. Diagnosis will be given in real-time or a few days later after corroboration by an eye movement expert.
The patient looks at a series of images on a computer screen, and eye movements are recorded by an unobtrusive infra-red camera. The eye tests are easy to administer and lasts around 30 minutes. Training of staff takes only a few hours. The eye movement patterns are compared automatically using special software with patterns on hundreds of patients and controls contained on the SACCADE reference database. Most of the funding over the next few years will be devoted to increasing the power and clinical and ethnic diversity of this database. When other reference psychiatric disorders are also included in the database, the outstanding sensitivity and specificity is likely to be maintained.
Benefits.
1: Improved validity and reliability in diagnosis of psychiatric patients with major mental illness
2: Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression can be distinguished from each other and normal controls at around 98% accuracy
3: Better-designed and targeted treatment plans for individual patients and sub groups of patients with specific eye movement patterns
4: Tests have high patient acceptability with almost 100%completion rate
Future Development
We will focus on adult and adolescent populations. As the database grows over the next 24 months, reference information will be available on a large range of illnesses including alcoholism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, personality disorders etc., and incorporate a range of major ethnic groups.
It is likely that the size of the equipment and its cost will fall dramatically over the next few years and that while the current product is aimed at specialist markets later versions will be attractive to a broad range of primary as well as secondary health care professionals.
The University of Aberdeen has appointed Frontline, a research and consultancy agency to conduct a market assessment for an eye movement tool to inform the diagnostic process for Schizophrenia and related disorders.
As part of this, we are seeking the views of industry, clinicians and researchers to gain their perspectives on the tool. The information below provides a brief overview of the eye movement tool and its future development to inform your thinking when considering the survey questions.
If you experience any technical difficulties or have any general queries regarding this market assessment please contact Julia Chim on 07974 714152 or Zoe Awty on 07917 834352.
Introduction
Major psychiatric disorders are the largest cause of disability worldwide. In contrast to other branches of medicine there are currently no non symptom based diagnostic tests for any of the major psychiatric disorders encountered in clinical practice; diagnosis is made solely on patient history, signs and symptoms.
Product overview
SACCADE is a series of eye movement tests that are administered to patients. When these are compared to eye movements from a large reference database from patients with major psychiatric disorders and normal controls it is possible to give a diagnostic probability with exceptional sensitivity and specificity. Diagnosis will be given in real-time or a few days later after corroboration by an eye movement expert.
The patient looks at a series of images on a computer screen, and eye movements are recorded by an unobtrusive infra-red camera. The eye tests are easy to administer and lasts around 30 minutes. Training of staff takes only a few hours. The eye movement patterns are compared automatically using special software with patterns on hundreds of patients and controls contained on the SACCADE reference database. Most of the funding over the next few years will be devoted to increasing the power and clinical and ethnic diversity of this database. When other reference psychiatric disorders are also included in the database, the outstanding sensitivity and specificity is likely to be maintained.
Benefits.
1: Improved validity and reliability in diagnosis of psychiatric patients with major mental illness
2: Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression can be distinguished from each other and normal controls at around 98% accuracy
3: Better-designed and targeted treatment plans for individual patients and sub groups of patients with specific eye movement patterns
4: Tests have high patient acceptability with almost 100%completion rate
Future Development
We will focus on adult and adolescent populations. As the database grows over the next 24 months, reference information will be available on a large range of illnesses including alcoholism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, personality disorders etc., and incorporate a range of major ethnic groups.
It is likely that the size of the equipment and its cost will fall dramatically over the next few years and that while the current product is aimed at specialist markets later versions will be attractive to a broad range of primary as well as secondary health care professionals.