Lay summary
New Zealand faces a healthcare crisis in the management of glaucoma. Glaucoma is an age-related eye disease that is the leading cause of preventable blindness in NZ. With an aging, sparsely-distributed population, it is set to become an increasingly expensive health problem. Glaucoma starts with a loss of peripheral vision that gradually spreads across the visual field. Effective treatment relies on early intervention but is hampered by patients not reporting problems until considerable (irreversible) vision loss has occurred. Detecting loss of peripheral vision requires a field test - patients report if they see points of light at different locations – which is slow and demanding. Here we take a different approach. Our eyes constantly (and reflexively) track movement and a reduction in such eye-movements indicates loss of peripheral vision. We will use this approach to develop a less-demanding, rapid, self-administered test of visual field loss in glaucoma.