RightEye Developing Eye-tracking Tests for Autism and Parkinson’s Disease
Thursday, September 15 2016 | 00 h 00 min | News
RightEye LLC, a health technology company using eye tracking to revolutionize vision performance and patient care, announced today that it has acquired the exclusive rights to two internationally recognized eye movement tests that help doctors more accurately and objectively identify early stages of autism in children 12 to 40 months old, and detect Parkinson’s disease in patients of all ages. The tests, which are based on extensive clinical studies, help identify both disorders earlier and more accurately, which can lead to earlier and more appropriate intervention.
“RightEye has consistently pioneered the use of eye-tracking technology to help solve some of health care’s greatest challenges,” said Barbara Barclay, president of RightEye. “Acquiring these tests has implications that reach far beyond our business — as our eye movement technology platform will now enable parents, patients and providers to get reliable and objective answers they need, when they need them, anywhere in the world at a lower cost.”
RightEye’s newly acquired test to identify autism is the GeoPref Autism Test, developed by Dr. Karen Pierce, which uses eye-tracking technology to compare the amount of time children spend looking at videos of people with the amount of time they spend looking at videos of geometric shapes. According to peer-reviewed research, children with healthy brains will spend more time looking at the videos containing faces. This new test results in identifying in one in five cases, and identifies children for further testing in nearly half of cases, allowing for early therapy intervention, which can have a profound impact on outcomes. The American Pediatric Association recommends intervention before age 3, yet often children are not diagnosed until later.
“In developing the GeoPref Autism Test, my goal was to make it easier, faster and more affordable to identify toddlers at risk for autism,” said Dr. Karen Pierce, the developer of the test and a leading researcher in understanding autism. “By partnering with RightEye, I knew that I would be able to make my test more accessible to health care providers and parents of young children seeking answers about an often-misunderstood and late-diagnosed disorder.”
RightEye’s POM (Parkinson’s and Other Movement) Disorders Test identifies Parkinson’s and other rare movement disorders, including Huntington’s disease and Essential Tremor. Developed by a neurologist and researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Center and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the test accurately identifies and assesses patterns of eye movement that are affected in patients with movement disorders. The test, which offers more accuracy than traditional diagnostic methods, takes only five minutes and has a dramatically lower cost than the extensive, costly PET scans and MRIs usually required for diagnosis.
