Depth perception in people with memory problems
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Binocular vision disorders experienced by people with dementia: Prevalence, nature and relationship to pupillary dynamics
IRAS ID
243336
Contact name
Marianne Coleman
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Surrey
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 1 days
Research summary
Some types of memory problems can change your ability to judge how near things are to you. This is called depth perception. It can be measured with some simple and easy tests, which are used in hospitals and high street opticians all the time.
Problems with depth perception can happen more often as people get older. But not many researchers have tried to measure depth perception in people with memory problems. So we don’t know if depth perception problems happen more often in people with memory problems, compared to people without memory problems.
We want to try using some simple depth perception tests with people who have memory problems and are attending a local day centre. We want to test 144 people. This will give us information about how often depth perception problems happen in people with memory problems, and which tests are the most suitable for this group.
Also, studying quick videos of a person’s eye while they repeat numbers might give useful clues about brain changes for people with memory problems. This is because the pupil, the black bit in the middle of the eye, gets bigger when the person is concentrating. This provides information about how much work that person is putting into trying to repeat the numbers.
But pupil size can also be affected when using your eyes together for depth perception. This is because pupil size and using the eyes together are linked by the same paths in the brain.
Because we’re measuring depth perception for this study, we want to record some short videos of the eyes too, to see if depth perception problems also affect pupil size during number tasks.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/YH/0152
Date of REC Opinion
14 May 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion