Perceptions and use of technology in older people with ophthalmic conditions.

Background: Technologies such as mobile applications are increasingly being developed for patients to help manage their clinical conditions. However there is a paucity of information confirming the capacity or willingness of older patients with ophthalmic complaints to engage with such computer applications. The aim of this paper is to assess the perception and use of a range of common computing technologies by older ophthalmic patients, in order to guide future ophthalmology-specific development and clinical use. Methods: Patients attending Manchester Royal Eye Hospital were surveyed with questions designed to measure their perceptions, attitudes and experiences of using technology.  Inclusion criteria included any patient aged 40 or over who attended the ophthalmology outpatients department. Results: A total of 300 patients completed the questionnaire. The male-to-female ratio was 128:169. The majority of patients owned predominantly mobile forms of technology such as tablets and smart phones. The most common uses of technology were for communicating with friends, watching television and gathering information. Patients aged over 80 had particular difficulty using technology and used it less regularly. Less than 10% overall stated eyesight as a reason for stopping using technology. Conclusions: Technology is used regularly by a large proportion of older ophthalmic patients, with numbers reducing significantly only in those aged 80 years or over. There appears to be potential for further medical use, though developers and clinicians should consider the perceptions and challenges highlighted through this survey.

Four tumours including neuroendocrine tumour of the ileum.

Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours are associated with development of further primary tumours. Certain conditions give an inherited predisposition to developing neoplasia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to report a patient with neuroendocrine tumour and three other tumours: a further bowel cancer, a brain tumour and a skin cancer. We report a case of a 42-year-old Caucasian man presenting with clinical features of intestinal obstruction who on histopathology of surgical specimen was found to have two distinct tumours of the bowel: a colonic adenocarcinoma at the splenic flexure and a well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumour of the terminal ileum. His history included a basal cell carcinoma and a benign brain tumour. He had extensive family history of neoplasia suggesting an inherited predisposition. Our case demonstrates the importance of investigating patients with known neuroendocrine tumours for further malignancy and suggests that patients with multiple primary malignancies should be referred for genetic testing.

Use of iris recognition camera technology for the quantification of corneal opacification in mucopolysaccharidoses.

Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) can cause corneal opacification that is currently difficult to objectively quantify. With newer treatments for MPS comes an increased need for a more objective, valid and reliable index of disease severity for clinical and research use. Clinical evaluation by slit lamp is very subjective and techniques based on colour photography are difficult to standardise. In this article the authors present evidence for the utility of dedicated image analysis algorithms applied to images obtained by a highly sophisticated iris recognition camera that is small, manoeuvrable and adapted to achieve rapid, reliable and standardised objective imaging in a wide variety of patients while minimising artefactual interference in image quality.