KITLIVING
happening when you sleep when there
is little or no light. That is when rods get
busy and the need for oxygen goes up.
Based on this, PolyPhotonix, a Britishbased medical company has developed
an eyemask for use at night time and
which mitigates against this effect. By
using the appropriate lightwave, the mask
keeps the rods happy while not letting
them demand too much oxygen, thereby
preventing the development of the newer,
local capillaries.
This treatment is easy to do it can be
done at home. The amount of light used
in the mask is very weak, too weak to
actually disrupt your circadian levels, i.e.
there would be no reason why your sleep
hormone production would be affected.
You should sleep fine.
Well developed
There has already been several years
of development of the Noctura 400
eyemask. With regards to any medical
device, a Phase 1 trial is done to prove
that no harm is being done by using the
treatment. The Noctura 400 eyemask has
passed a Phase 1 trial. Then a Phase 2
trial is done to prove that the treatment
works.
Moira Hopkins has been involved in the
project since 2013. She has a background
in physics and has been primarily working
on launching the product in the UK. The
company is based in Sedgefield, County
Durham. She says, "Unfortunately, within
20 years of diagnosis nearly everyone with
Type 1 diabetes and almost 2/3 of people
with Type 2 diabetes will have some
degree of retinopathy*. However patients
are only treated at relatively late stages of
developing the condition. The retina has
huge oxygen consumption, the highest
oxygen requirement of any tissue in the
body, because of the high metabolic
rate of the photo-receptors (rods and
cones) and other structures. You have
approximately 120 million rods which
operate in the dark, and 7million cones
that operate in the light. Rods continue to
operate even when you're asleep, which
means they are still using oxygen. This
leads to an increased demand for blood
supply in the eye. Retinal hypoxia is the
medical term for a lack of oxygen. In those
circumstances the body then creates
extra blood vessels to supply demand.
"The Noctura 400 eyemask works
by providing a very low intensity of light
of the specific wavelength. This prevents
the rods from dark-adapting. It's a specific
wavelength that will not disrupt sleep.
Our Phase 2 trial showed that retinopathy
cysts were either reduced in size or gone
after six months we could show that
treated eyes got better while untreated
eyes got worse."
The device is programmed to suit
each patient's normal hours of sleep.It
should be worn every night for as long
as they are in bed up to a maximum of
eight hours and it lasts for three months,
then it gets replaced. The previous mask
is returned to the company who can then
see how much it is being used.
By compiling the data on patients
and linking it to eye health, the company
is proving that the product is effective
and a potential sight-saver. The point of
returning the used mask to the clinician
who can assess how it is being used is
also partly to help support the user to
make the best use of it. The eyemask
can be set up so that data from it can be
downloaded to a secure server and can
be shared with the clinician or caregiver to
monitor use.
The Noctura eyemask 400 is a
treatment for life; you can take a break and
skip a night if you need to, but otherwise
it should be used every night. It's a Class
2a medical device with CE accreditation
and the use of it is monitored by a health
professional during use.
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