An app has been developed to help manage excessive and inappropriate device use by children in an effort to mitigate the associated onset of myopia.
The plano app plays in the background of phones and tablets, reminding children to hold the device at a healthy distance from their eyes and to take regular breaks away from the screen. It also screens for myopia and monitors behaviour patterns, which are then fed into smart algorithms. These algorithms filter the information and generate reports to parents to ensure timely eye checks.
Across the globe, the increase in smart device usage and the correlated issue of myopia is becoming a public health and economic problem. At the same time, device dependency, gaming addiction, cyber bullying, diabetes, and lack of outdoor activity are growing global public health epidemics linked to excessive or inappropriate device usage by children.
“It is critical that we intervene early to reduce the risk of children developing sightthreatening myopia,” says Dr. Mo Dirani, Founder and CEO of plano. “If left unaddressed, this issue will critically worsen in the next 10 years and plano aims to work with governments, industry players and other important stakeholders to combat this growing problem.”
Plano launched in Singapore in 2017 and the developers are partnering with Singapore’s Health Promotion Board and establishing broad industry collaborations. More recently, the company expanded into Malaysia and India, and announced plans to launch in Australia. Visit www.plano.co/download
