Undiscovered vision loss

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There is a great need for the development and testing of better innovative solutions for early identification and clarification of treatment of citizens living with vision loss. By thinking about new collaborative models and using the great potential of using existing technologies in new areas, we in this project will optimise the diagnosis and treatment of vision loss. In the project, we will work interdisciplinary with user-driven innovation to best understand what it is like to live with vision loss. In order to identify and get in touch with the large, undiagnosed group of citizens who unnecessarily live with vision loss, it is important to have an insight into the everyday life of the citizen and to create an understanding of how the individual citizen makes reflections or finds strategies that make it acceptable to live with loss of vision. Timely identification of vision loss will mean that fewer citizens live with unnecessary consequences of vision loss and thus get earlier and better help. Early treatment will ensure increased functioning and independence for the citizen, as well as an increased well-being and quality of life for citizens as well as relatives. The impact of the new improved technological solutions will be of particular importance for citizens living far from treatment sites, as well as for citizens where vision loss is not their primary disease. In addition, the solutions will aim to create equal access to treatment and thus contribute to remedying socio-demographic inequality in this area. The health economic benefits that will be derived from the project’s results will thus have a broad and cross-cutting impact in society. The purpose of the project is to disseminate screening for vision loss to citizens who are already in contact with the health care system due to age or in connection with other diseases, but who do not seek ophthalmologist or optician himself. There are already a number of health technologies designed to make screening for vision loss easy and accessible. For example, several ophthalmologists use handheld mobile cameras that are intuitive in design, easy to handle and transport. Similarly, the cloud-based diagnostic system called Eyecheck, which makes it easy to send results from screening studies directly to ophthalmologists, is currently becoming widespread among opticians in Norway. Thus, there is a strong prevention potential in cooperating across national, public and private sectors and in applying and disseminating the already existing innovative solutions for sectors where healthcare professionals are already in contact with the target group of older citizens who are most exposed to visual loss. The project will embrace the average elderly citizen 75+, who, for reasons other than vision challenges, seeks health care at a Swedish spring centre. Similarly, the project will include citizens 75+, whose relatives visit an optician; this will include elderly people who are at risk of vision loss solely due to their age, but who are not yet in investigation or treatment. This inclusion will take place both in Denmark and Sweden. Finally, the project will include a group of more vulnerable citizens living with other diseases and who are challenged on physical or mental skills to such an extent that they receive help through municipal home care in their own homes. Recruitment in home care will take place in Denmark. By creating a broad and diverse screening strategy across Denmark and Sweden, as well as across actors and sectors, the project will gain knowledge about which groups of citizens live with undetected vision loss, and what this is due to and how we best accommodate it. Through the project, using the latest technology, easy and effective screening methods will be developed and tested in the three settings. This is expected to promote the project’s implementability by bringing innovative research closer to the citizen, also citizens at risk of vision loss, who do not seek health care by themselves.

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