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Show MACHINE SEARCHES FOR BLIND The bubble -shaped machine ma-chine may look like a "Space Invaders" electronics game, but this sophisticated instrument instru-ment won't be found in any amusement park. It's located locat-ed in the LDS Hospital Division Divi-sion of Neurology. The new machine, called a perimetron, is used by hospital hos-pital neurologists and oph-thalmogists oph-thalmogists to precisely locate lo-cate vision abnormalities In patients suffering from a number of disease including glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, sclero-sis, strokes and brain tumors. "Patients with these diseases di-seases often have visual field abnormalities," says Dr. Robert M. Satovick, director of the hospital division. "The perimetron allows us to recognize the presence of these areas, document their severity and monitor the patient's pa-tient's progress." Prior to the development of the perimetron, physicians physi-cians relied on a much less precise, though similar test. That examination required the patient to watch his physician phy-sician manually move alight or other object around a large black cloth. The patient pa-tient would then announce when he could see the object. The new perimetron eliminates elim-inates many of these problems. prob-lems. "This machine determines deter-mines the patient's visual defect with greater accuracy, accur-acy, can reproduce a test for comparison and takes far less time than a manual examination," Dr. Satovick adds. Today, depending upon which of the perimetron's42 programs is used, most studies stu-dies can be performed in 20 minutes to one hour. |