Eye Rotation Pandulum

Mr. Kailash Kumar

Introduction

In patients with refractive errors, there are vision problems that happen when the shape of the eye keeps them from focusing well. This could be due to various causes, such as the condition of the length of the eyeball (longer or shorter), changes in the shape of the cornea, or aging of the lens.Near-sightedness, far-sightedness, and astigmatismare the most common types of medical conditions that arise due to refractive errors. It has been estimated that worldwide there are about two billion people with refractive errors.

If the refractive errors are diagnosed during early childhood and remedied, there is a strong chance of reducing the growing number of such eye patients. The errors are diagnosed by ophthalmologists and optometrists through a comprehensive examination of the eyes called vision screenings.The screenings are done for detecting the ability to focus on near and far objects, and totrack objects that move across the field of vision. Once a diagnosis is made, the appropriate remedy is recommended, such as prescription glasses, contact lenses, laser treatment and vision therapy. Vision therapy typically involves eye exercises that may last for several months. Eye exercises are believed to strengthen the eye muscles for improved vision. Presently the mechanisms available globally for eye exercises include tools, such as Marsden Balls for adults, rotation discs for children or Pursuit Space Ball for infants.

The Need of the Innovation

In India, patients who are suffering from such eyesight problems are generally treated by opticians and ophthalmologists by prescribing spectacles, contact lenses, laser surgery, and other eye-related medications, which are expensive for a vast majority of the population. The spectacles or contact lenses are not a permanent solution as there is no guarantee of the vision not worsening further. Usually, the corrective power keeps on increasing and the vision further deteriorated in spite of wearing spectacles and lenses. The contact lenses have their share of side effects, such as redness, allergies, infection, etc. Surgeries, such as Lasik are an extremely expensive solution that is neither permanent nor affordable by many.

Mr. Kailash Kumar is an optometrist and is employed at Preksha Eye Yogacentre,Adhyatm Sadhana Kendra,Chhatarpur, New Delhi, and is pursuing the PGCIATIVIProgramme from IGNOU. As an optometrist, he has been conducting vision therapy on children for strengthening their eye muscles. Mostly the exercise includes tracking an object across their field of vision. For this exercise, Mr. Kumar has been using his hand as a pendulum for tracking. He discovered that this leads to his fatigue. Also, he found that it was not sufficient for providing the optimum distance for the patients to properly focus upon. He could not find any appropriate device in the market that met his needs.Therefore he thought of designing a device that would be appropriate for conducting the eye exercises.

IGNOU has recognized this equipment as an important innovation by an IGNOU student and is keen on nurturing it further.

The Innovation

Mr. Kailash Kumar considered the fact that if we do a general eye movement, we cannot move our eyes beyond a particular angle.So, his idea was to devise an instrument that would help move theeyes at 360 degree to develop the peripheral vision. He discussed his idea withone of his optometrist friends and he gave a dial chart to fix the degrees of vision. After that Mr. Kumar simply used a wheel bearing and twostainless steel rods attached to it. At the end of the two rods, two balls are attached of two different colours-red and yellow. This device is attached to a dial chart on a wall. The manual pendular movement of the wheel and the attached rods assist the eye movement in the desired direction. He named this device the Eye Rotation Pendulum. The solution involves physical exercise- eye movement. This tool is to help conduct the eye exercises at the scale of 360 degrees. The patient has to rotate the eyes in a certain direction. It is a natural vision improvement program to help people to prevent and reduce eyesight problems at an early stage, without any surgery, Lasik or Laser.

Applications of the Eye Rotation Pendulum

The Eye Rotation Pendulum is a non-surgical and customized program of visual exercises and activities which is scientifically designed to correct refractive errors, such asmyopia, astigmatism, cylindrical number etc. The different colours of balls attached to the steel rods help in prescribing the eye movement according to problem statement. The red ball movement is used for minus number and cylindrical number. The yellow ball movement is used for plus number.

  1. Minus Number - To improve the minus number the eyes have to trace only the right half of the dial chart.

  2. Plus Number- To improve the plus number the eyes have to trace only the upper half circle of the dial chart.

  3. Cylindrical Number- To improve cylindrical number the eyes have to trace from a particular degree to a particular degree. Suppose if someone is wearing -2 CYL number at 150 degree, the person has to trace the eyes from 150 degree to 0 degree.

This equipment will help in reducing the refractive power of the prescribed glasses or contact lenses. The solution has been tested on around 150 people and shown substantial improvement, in the refractive errors these people had. Mr. Kailash Kumar has checked the refractive error and power before and after the program. A significant improvement was found in almost all the persons who attended the program. At present this device is being used at the Preksha Eye Yogacentre, Adhyatm Sadhana Kendra, Chhatarpur, New Delhi successfully.

Future plans

This equipment can be used at various vision centers, and Mr. Kailash Kumar plans to take steps to convert the device into a commercially deliverable solution after complete digitization of the exercises, so that it can be scaled and reach the masses.