Project Team: Vivian Liu
Blepharospasm is an eye movement disorder in which uncontrollable muscle contractions (called “dystonia” in medical terms) lead to impaired blinking and interference during daily activities such as socialization and driving.
As a rarer condition, there is little consensus amongst medical professionals about its diagnosis and treatment, and patients have difficulties measuring treatment outcomes. The crux of the problem is that it is hard to quantitatively document how patients fare outside the hospital.
Liu sought to create a wearable that can serve as a data diary for each individual’s experience with blepharospasm. Each eye episode is captured as video using a mirror and borescope camera setup, which is mounted onto a pair of glasses via 3D printing and magnetism. This video stream is then post-processed with image processing algorithms in a web application that allows for longitudinal, retrospective analysis.