Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Round Table. Hello everybody, welcome to Round Table.
Coming to you from Beijing.
I'm her young. Good to have you join us.
Ah, the human eye is through this intricate lens that we perceive the beauty of a blooming flower, the majesty of a mountain range, and the tender expressions of those we love.
Met in this digital age, our eyes are besieged by the relentless glow of screens, hours spent in front of computers, tablets, and phones, strain our vision, and threaten the very gift that allows us to witness the splendor of existence.
How can we balance the marvels of modern technology with the preservation of our precious sight?
For today's program, I'm joined by Dingheng in the studio and Steve Hatherley on the line, first on a day's show.
June 6th marks the 29th National Eyecare Day in China, focusing on general eye health.
China's shift from blindness preservation to eye health promotion reflects a broader public health approach.
Achieving greater awareness, accessibility, and equity in eye care is essential for all.
How can public health initiatives be designed to address the evolving eye health needs of the population?
Particularly in the context of changing lifestyles.
So Dingheng, could you please update us with what are the interesting and important activities and events held this year on this day?
Yeah, so for this year's National Eyecare Day, China's National Health Commission has proposed a series of promotional activities to try to enhance public awareness and attention to the issue of eye health.
For example, the Commission will release some posters, videos, and other kind of materials by various regions before that date.
And in the meantime, the Commission will also organize any eligible medical institutions to conduct online or offline clinics in a time limit manner to provide consultations, eye examinations, inquiries, and education on common eye diseases.
And those medical institutions will be encouraged to apply those emerging technologies like big data, AI, and 5G in early eye disease screening.
So it looks to me that a focal point this time is about how to popularize eye health knowledge to the general public and really helping people cultivate a correct understanding of eye health, this kind of initiatives cover communities, enterprises, schools, rural communities, and they are really trying to emphasize early examination, diagnosis, and treatment awareness among some key groups like children or the elderly people.
And Steve, when you first saw this topic for a discussion, what was your knee-jerk reaction?
Do you think that there are many things about eye care that people just don't really pay attention to or who would think about this when you're in perfect health?
I think you're right. It's yeah, when we're in our good times of health, we don't really think about this.
But I was just looking up, you know, general information about the eye and, you know, just to find out what I could learn and then I was looking at other parts of the world to see what governments do or what kind of awareness campaigns they have.
And I found these little facts to be quite interesting.
Did you know the most active muscles in your body are actually in your eyes?
That's one little fun fact.
Here's another one. Seeing takes up more than 50% of your brain's functionality.
So just keeping those two things in mind, it's really obvious to us how important our eyes are to our general well-being and our daily activity.
But how much time do we spend thinking about it?
Probably not as much as we should.
So I think today's topic of conversation is a really important one for us to be aware of and to learn as much about as we can.
Yes, absolutely. And I realized that this is probably, you know, tipping into the world of political correctness, but usually as the term visual impairment that is being used instead of, I suppose, blindness or whatnot.
Dingheng, could you give us a definition on what constitutes as visual impairment and when people use this term in all these international journals and news reports, what exactly is it referred to?
Yeah. So this is a term that is usually used to describe any kind of visual loss actually, whether we are talking about entire loss or partial loss in addition to people who are entirely blind.
And many people are actually suffering from what is called as legal blindness.
They have not lost their sight completely, but they have to stand like six meters away from a particular object to be able to see it.
By comparison, people with a normal or perfect division could see the same object when they are standing like 10 times the same distance.
So that's the issue. Yeah, globally, there is a, the picture is now too rosy because according to the World Health Organization, at least the 2.2 billion people, globally have a near or distance vision impairment.
And at least a one billion, almost a half of those cases vision impairment could have been prevented and is yet to be addressed.
I even had to look up what those terms actually mean because I've heard it my whole life, you know, perfect vision is 2020 vision, but I didn't know what that actually meant.
I didn't know what those numbers represented and is Dinghung just explained it.
Yeah, perfect vision 2020.
You can see what you're supposed to see at 20 feet, but then the numbers change.
For example, if your vision is 2030, it means that what a person with great vision can see at 30 feet, you have to be at 20 feet.
And then the worse your vision gets, the more that number changes, 20 40, 2050, 20 60, 20 70.
And I don't know how bad my eyes are, but I'm guessing they're in that 20 to 50, 60, maybe even 70 range.
They're not very good. Indeed.
And let's get into the details of the approximately one billion of global population who are suffering from some kind of visual impairment situation.
And the main conditions causing distance vision impairment or blindness are the following.
So there are approximately 94 million people who live with cataract.
And more than 88 million people who are living with refractive error.
And let me just say, near sightedness or myopia, which a lot of Chinese kids and grownups are very familiar with, including everybody sitting in the studio right now.
So I suppose this population could be bigger actually, kind of questioning the validity of these figures.
And also, 8 million people globally are living with age-related macular degeneration.
And 7.7 million people around the world have glaucoma or tinguangya in Chinese.
And last time when I checked with my doctor, I got a firm warning about this too.
And the main condition causing near vision impairment is prispiopia, which is laohaya in Chinese.
And there are 626 million people who are going through this.
And a lot of us kind of expect this coming when we get a bit older.
And the figures in China, according to the China Disabled Persons Federation, there are 17 million people who are living with some kind of visual impairment, among which 3 million are blind, while the others are low-visioned.
So actually, if you look at the numbers, there are so many people who are silently going through this, and the general public don't really know much about it, about their situation, and there's just so much more that can be done in addressing the grievances and needs of folks going through all of this.
And this I'd like to ask you, Steve, what are the immediate impacts on the population, let's say if you're suffering from one of these eye conditions?
Could you walk us through some of them?
Well, I think reduced mobility is, depending on how bad your vision is, but reduced mobility is one of the biggest problems in regular society, meaning the ability to kind of get around the city.
If you are visually impaired, countries have done different things.
Korea, maybe we can get into that a little bit later.
What Korea has done to try to help people's mobility in everyday situations.
But also the impact economically, because so much more money has to be spent on healthcare as well.
If we can get to these problems earlier, if we can start diagnosing these problems earlier, then this is potentially better for people's daily lives, but it's better for the healthcare industry as well, because it's going to save so much more money, and economic impact won't be as severe.
Looking at some statistics, and you just mentioned, as we get older, our vision tends to get worse.
I've gone some statistics out of the United States.
I was on an I center homepage last night learning as much as I could, and the statistics break down like this.
12 to 19 years, that's where you're going to find a 6.9% of the population with some sort of I problem.
20 to 39 goes up to 10%, and then people over 60 years old, it goes up to 41.5%.
The point is if we can get to those problems earlier and start diagnosing problems earlier, it's just going to be better off for everyone.
Now actually adding to a point raised by Steve regarding this bigger economic or social impact, actually vision impairment is posing really huge global financial burdens.
We're talking about an estimated loss of annual global productivity of $411 billion US dollars in terms of their purchasing power parity.
On the other hand, if we are to address this global all-matte needs of vision impairment, the estimated cost is somewhere around $25 billion US dollars.
Was that in mind the cost of this benefit is very clear here.
We really need to undertake the cost in order to pursue the benefit.
And also in this digital age that we live in, so much of life work and economic activities as well as entertainment happens on the smartphone or on the computer, one of these devices.
And this obviously poses one huge hurdle for those who can't access the screens directly or easily.
And what are some of the efforts that have been made in recent years to address this information accessibility barrier?
Yeah, so I guess here in the case of the Chinese context, China has really put in place some laws and regulations to try to ensure those public facilities and digital services in particular are available and accessible to people with disabilities.
For example, there is this particular law called the law on the construction of an accessible environment.
It came into effect in September last year.
This is China's first specialized law in this regard.
It stipulates that national basic public services must use the national standards, and it also includes various national standards for information accessibility.
To try to address those existing challenges faced by those people with some challenges in terms of how they see things.
And also assistive technology development has also taken place.
And companies, organizations are developing assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice control devices, and specialized apps to help those with need to help those living with visual impairments.
And these kind of technologies help them to navigate digital environments and perform daily tasks.
Yeah, one exciting piece of news from Korea this year came from this year's 2024 CES.
You know what the CES is?
The Consumer Electronics Show.
It takes place in Las Vegas every year.
It's kind of like a showcase for tech companies to show off what they've got in terms of advancements.
And there was a start up from here in Korea that at this year's CES, it won a couple of awards because of their smartphone Bluetooth Quartee communicator.
It's called Fintin V1 and what it is, it's a handheld device that blind people can hold in their hand.
It's really quite small.
And it reduces 36 keys that you'd find on your typical Quartee keyboard into 6 keys.
And it makes it easy for the visually impaired to use it with very little practice.
So it's technological advances like this.
Accessing smartphones and keyboards typing on your keyboard, on your phone, or doing banking or things like this.
These are serious challenges that we don't think about.
But for the visually impaired, they think about these things every single day.
The good news is, there's lots of advancements and companies continually working on this to try to make life better and easier for the people who need it.
Yes indeed. And there's the specialized social tools and gaming products developed for the visually impaired community to meet their entertainment and social needs.
I find this one to be fascinating.
Yeah, exactly. Because we're talking about I'm not very familiar with the gaming industry.
But according to the limited materials I have read about, we are talking about a game called Roon Yao Zhang Chang or Honor Battlefield.
Right. It is a purely audio-based combat mobile game where players can judge their scenarios, their own positions and enemies positions by simply listening to the audio, listening to the sound, and they slide the strings to select weapons.
Its main players are those visually impaired individuals, according to what I have read about.
Not only that, food too.
Here in Korea, I think it was just last year as a matter of fact in September.
What shall I call it? The Golden Arches, the Cheeseburger Company.
They installed kiosks for the blind at 15 of its stores in Seoul.
They offer voice guidance features.
When those stores did that, they were the first of their kind in Asia and the second of their kind in the world.
It seems that gaming, cheeseburgers everywhere we can think of, there are advancements being made.
This is fantastic news.
Yes. Public infrastructure could be improved in so many ways to really meet the needs of those who are living with different kinds of conditions.
This includes efforts to make public spaces more accessible in China, including installing tactile paving, audible traffic signals, and braille signs in public transportation systems, buildings, and other facilities.
And in China, and I remember saying this on this show 10 years ago.
And I hope it's improved now that is in Chinese cities, you can see the tactile pavement on the regular pavement, but often at least to dead ends or at least to a whole bunch of shared bikes being parked there.
And it's just not really conducive to the mobility of folks who are living with visual impairment issues.
And I just hope that the implementation of these policies can be so much more practical.
And it's not about just the meters of tactile pavement a city has constructed.
It's more about how many real problems can you really address for those who are in need.
I think getting feedback from the people who use those types of things on a daily basis is the way to make improvements.
I read a story from here in Busan where I am in Korea right now about one of the subway lines.
I'm not sure if they have them in Beijing, but here in Busan, down on the subway platform and at different points in the subway stations, they have the raised yellow blocks that help guide blind people to where they want to go from the street all the way down to the subway platform.
And they got some feedback from people in the community and they said, yeah, it's great.
And during non rush hour times, that's really easy to use.
But subway stations are incredibly busy, right?
And it's easy to get disoriented and not follow those raised yellow blocks.
So there was a new technological advancement where they could use their smartphone to get audio instructions on how to follow.
And it's meter by meter instructions as well.
It's not like, you know, you'll get the audio instruction every, you know, 250 meters or something.
No, it's meter by meter instruction.
And you can put into the smartphone application where in the subway station you want to go.
So if you want to go to a particular kiosk, it'll direct you there.
If you want to go outside, it'll direct you all the way outside advancements like this and getting feedback.
So they got feedback from people in the community and they said that that smartphone application was a much, much more practical and easier way to find your way around the subway station as opposed to only using the raised yellow blocks.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I guess a lot more efforts will be required in terms of making our advancement in terms of the digital technology more universally accessible to everybody, including visually impaired people.
Yes, we need a joint effort from governments forces and enterprises and individual investors.
So yeah, hopefully we'll see more improvement from the diagnosis stage to education to employment opportunities.
There are so many improvements that could be made just to make the lives easier for those living with such conditions.
But also we've mentioned that screens kind of dictate our attention in so many ways.
How should we protect our eyes in the digital age?
And this is for the general public.
Steve, what are your thoughts?
Don't we hear this message every single day?
We do. We do screen time.
Reduced screen time is what we always say.
It's so bad for your eyes, right?
The blue light. So that's big step number one.
Now I was talking with a friend who was visiting me recently and he works on his computer all day long.
And he says he goes for a long walk every single day.
He lives kind of in a forest area near a stream.
And he said when he goes for a walk, he can literally feel his eyes healing from the staring at a screen all day for his work.
So I think that's one major thing that we can do.
So nowadays it's really difficult to refrain from looking at the screen.
It's a realistic issue.
But there is a so called 2020 rule.
This particular rule is suggesting that for every 20 minutes you spend on your screen, you should take a break and take a 20 second break to look at something that is at least 20 feet away.
Maybe 20 feet is like six meters.
Yeah, in more general terms.
And yeah. And it's so hard to remember though, isn't it?
You're working all day at the office like, okay, it's been 20 minutes.
I have to take a 20 second break.
But oh, that's only four meters away.
It has to be six meters away.
It's hard, isn't it? You know, in this day and age when we're all working so hard, it's so difficult even to remember these things.
Well, actually we had a little discussion in the office before the show.
And one of my co-workers said that she once deployed an alarm clock that would go off every 20 minutes just to remind her to look away from the screen.
But then she said instead of it being useful, it was more of a nuisance.
Did she annoyed all her co-workers every 20 minutes?
She annoyed herself. She was like, all right.
You're breaking my flow alarm clock and finally getting into this deep, thoughtful state and being very productive on my computer.
So it's hard, but I think it's good to have this kind of reminder or at least awareness.
You know, this is what you're supposed to do, even if it's difficult to follow religiously.
Well, how about just regularly scheduled eye exams as well?
The older we get, they suggest that we have an eye exam annually for people over 60.
But even for people, you know, 30s and 40s, once every couple of years going for a scheduled eye exam is a good idea because you're not only testing your eyes, they can detect other potential problems in your body too.
But I don't know about you.
For me personally, I don't even remember the last time I had an eye test.
It might have been when I was a teenager perhaps.
So keeping these types of things in mind for the general population can help protect our eyes too.
Well, for your annual physical checkup, don't you have an eye examination?
It's that chart, isn't it?
Yeah. What's that called?
The Shelvin Chart? I forget the name of it.
The chart always stresses me out because it's like when you go into a test and you know you're going to fail before you even get there, it doesn't make the test any fun at all.
No, you're right, but I'm talking about like maybe even more detailed tests than that.
Yeah, maybe make some changes in terms of our lifestyle or dietary habits and just simply to blink regularly because this will also be helpful, you know, and doing some massages to your eyes.
You know, that's something we do.
We Chinese students usually do when we were in primary and in middle schools.
That's really helpful.
Really? It's a question.
They can help relieve your eye strain.
Yeah, so just don't look at your smartphones, your screens all the time.
Stand up, walk around, do anything but that.
