CIVIL
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Case Investigations for Vision Loss
IRAS ID
199425
Contact name
Rachel Woodall
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Research & Enterprise Office
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 7 months, 31 days
Research summary
Visual loss is a debilitating and isolating condition that can arise from dysfunction of the eye and brain. There are many instances of visual loss arising atypically, which presents a challenge for clinicians in terms of advising the patient and establishing appropriate treatments. On such occasions it can be beneficial to use tests and techniques that are developed in research laboratories outwith the NHS. For example, careful neuropsychological, electrodiagnostic and neuroimaging approaches that are developed in research labs can inform on the reasons for visual loss. The thrust of this proposal is to seek permission to test patients with visual loss with research procedures so that the patient and their carers are better informed about the reasons for their visual loss and that clinicians might be able to establish better treatment strategies. There are also benefits to research as it is through the investigations of atypical patients that we often gain greatest insight to how visual perception is achieved by the interplay between signalling in the eye and the processing of those signals in the brain.
The proposal aims to capture a full picture of the function, structure and neurochemistry of the visual system and relate it to the visual capacities of single cases. In gathering the full picture of visual loss, we wish to follow patients from when their visual loss is detected (or as soon as we can thereafter). This will allow us to capture changes in the visual system that related to further loss or indeed recovery from the initial visual loss. In order to test patients during periods that offer interesting windows on visual dysfunction requires that we have ethical approval for such work before patients are identified.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/YH/0203
Date of REC Opinion
21 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion