Statler College professor sets sights on improving eye drop medication adherence

Assistant professor Stephen Cain, uses wearable sensors to detect if eye drop medication is properly administered as graduate assistants Kathylee Pinnock Branford and Daniel Duque Urrego collect data.

In the world of medicinal applications for glaucoma, the benefits of treatment are only as good as the proper dosage administered.

Story by Brittany Furbee, Communications Specialist
Photos by Paige Nesbit, Director of Marketing

Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Researchers at West Virginia University are working collaboratively on a project that will monitor and assess the application of eye drop medication in patients with glaucoma and use that data to help create a technology that will digitally monitor the effectiveness of eye drop instillation.  

Although there are effective treatment options available, glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the United States. The most common treatment for patients is daily prescribed eye drop medications, which are highly effective when properly administered on a regular schedule. However, research shows that approximately 20 percent of glaucoma patients fail to administer the proper amount of medication in their eyes, mostly due to sensorimotor deficits that are prominent in older populations. 

The Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor received over $2.3 million in funding from the National Institution of Health to further research the issues impacting eye drop administration and to design a comprehensive and user-friendly Eye Drop Adherence Monitoring System.  

The EAMS will consist of a low-power and portable on-bottle sensor and a cellular-linked communication station that will remotely identify when an eye drop is dispensed and record the probability of successful dispersion. The EAMS will also integrate a personalized text message program that will inform patients on the success or failure of administering their medication into their eyes.  

“I am incredibly excited to work on this project with the University of Michigan to develop a new technology that will enable the accurate monitoring of eye drop medication use,” said Stephen Cain, assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering and co-principal investigator for the project. “Here at WVU we will be focused on developing the algorithms that are necessary to utilize sensor data to understand the biomechanics and quality of movement during eye drop instillation.”  

To develop the algorithms, Cain plans to capture data from patients by equipping them and their eye drop medication with an array of wearable sensors. The sensors will measure how fast participants raise their arm and the angle at which they administer their medication. The measurements will help researchers quantify the techniques participants use, such as how they tilt their head or the bottle, and the quality of their movements, such as how still they hold the bottle while dispensing drops.  

“We will use our computational algorithms to analyze and study the participant data we collect in order to understand the relationship between sensorimotor abilities, technique and eye drop instillation success,” said Cain. “This understanding will guide the development of the EAMS, which will enable remote monitoring of eye drop medication use.”  

The EAMS will be able to be used in both clinical and research settings to assess adherence to eye drop medication dosages. This will allow medical professionals to provide better guidance when training patients on proper ways to administer eye drops, which will increase the outcomes of patients who rely on eye drop medication to self-manage a variety of conditions.  

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