Detecting AMD caused vision scotoma through eye tracking

Abstract

Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the third leading cause of blindness and the first one in the elderly. AMD usually causes vision loss as the central vision field, e.g., vision scotoma, blur, and distortion, et. al. In this paper, we propose to detect AMD caused vision scotoma through eye tracking. Compared with the current vision assessment methods, e.g., Amsler grid, Microperimetry and Preferential Hyperacuity Perimetry, the proposed method has several advantages. 1) It does not require the patient to stare at a fixed position throughout the test. 2) It does not require the patient to orally or manually report / mark out the vision impairment. 3) It is easy to operate thus a trained nurse is capable of operating the test. To implement the proposed method, we collected gaze data of 138 eyes of 75 patients, who are diagnosed as AMD patient by clinicians. Nidek Microperimetry is adopted as the gold standard to get the ground truth and to evaluate our method. The result verifies the effectiveness of detecting vision scotoma through eye tracking.