With the advanced fusion of cyberspace and physical space, medical treatment to be realized in Society 5.0 is forecasted to transition from the traditional medial facility-centered medical care to a medical care that emphasizes predictive and life-long support for citizens and patients in daily living area. In particular, the quality of visual function is important for improving the quality of life (QOL) in modern society as aging of the population and digitalization progress. Affecting 20 million people in Japan, dry eye is one of the most common eye diseases in Japan, and the number of patients is expected to increase in the future. The deterioration of visual acuity because of the various symptoms of dry eye causes lifelong deterioration of QOL. Dry eye is a multifactorial disease in which environmental factors, lifestyle habits, and host factors are interrelated in a complex manner. To improve the quality of medical care for dry eye with the aim of realization of Society 5.0, pre-emptive medicine and personalized medicine that prevents the onset and severity from occurring by understanding the diversity of individual subjective symptoms and visualizing and stratifying related etiologies are important. We used the iPhone application Dry Eye Rhythm^Ⓡ to collect big data on the individual symptoms and lifestyle habits related to dry eye. This study clarified factors that aggravate the symptoms of dry eye, the characteristics of dry eye in undiagnosed patients, and the correlation between severe dry eye symptoms and depressive symptoms. These results may lead to individualized early prevention and effective intervention with mobile health for dry eye patients and can be expected to contribute to preemptive and personalized medical care for dry eye treatment in future.
Nippon Ganka Gakkai Zasshi (J Jpn Ophthalmol Soc) 124: 861-872, 2020.