Of 65 million people affected by glaucoma worldwide, over 3 million turned permanently blind. While there is no cure for this condition, it can be controlled by frequent check-ups if detected early. 

Gold standard devices like Schiøtz tonometer require the aid of experienced clinicians. They are invasive, uncomfortable and cumbersome. Ideally, patients must be able to diagnose themselves, even at home. There is an unmet need for a simple, portable and self-use device for this purpose.

The glaucoma screener is a novel headgear-based ophthalmology device that can be used to conveniently position a screening module at the eye and measure the intra-ocular pressure (IOP) in glaucoma patients, which is the main risk-factor. 

The device developed in this work involves positioning an indenter to touch the eyelid. Then it is moved forward to gently flatten the cornea through the eyelid and obtain the reaction pressure from the eye. This is captured using a force-sensitive resistor which passes the information to a PCB. An LED flashes when the reaction force crosses a safe threshold, indicating a risk of glaucoma.

Convenience in diagnosis is a key feature in this design. It requires no special training and allows users to get diagnosed at home or in large medical camps by healthcare workers. 

The device can be fastened around the head with a three-way elastic. After that, three simple steps are followed to check IOP. 

This was my final year project at Symbiosis International University. After graduation, I filed an international patent for this invention.

The design and development of this device was presented at the International Conference on Research into Design (ICoRD 2021) and the proceedings are published in Springer's 'Design for Tomorrow: Volume 3'.

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