Fight for Sight and Nystagmus Network are funding research into the impact of glare in infantile nystagmus and albinism in the hope of improving outcomes for people with the condition. People with nystagmus often experience glare, but until now this has not been researched thoroughly.
The team at University of Leicester, led by Dr Frank Proudlock, will study 4 groups of people: with albinism; with idiopathic infantile nystagmus; with achromatopsia; without nystagmus. They aim to determine the most effective way to measure glare, its impact on reading and whether tinted glasses or reading overlays can help. It’s hoped that a better understanding of the impact of glare will help parents, teachers, doctors and people with nystagmus to come up with the best solutions for reading in their education, work and day-to-day life.
A further small grant award to Leicester
Dr Mervyn Thomas, also of the University of Leicester, has won the Fight for Sight/Nystagmus Network funded small grant award for a nystagmus related research project. The work, delayed from 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, will now start later this month.
Vivien Jones, chairman of the Nystagmus Network’s Research Committee, said: “The Nystagmus Network is delighted that its joint funding relationship with Fight for Sight has led to two awards – first to Frank Proudlock for his winning bid for a PhD student post. We greatly look forward to seeing important research flow from this appointment, which will start later this year and represents the biggest-ever single investment by the Nystagmus Network in research. We are equally pleased to see that Mervyn Thomas has won the small grant award for his proposal to develop a low-cost system for the recording and analysis of eye movement characteristics, suitable for clinic-based assessments.”
