Motility of the Ocular Prosthesis in Anophthalmic Patients: Objective and Patient-perceived Findings

ABSTRACT

Aim

To study the impact of the prosthesis motility on the Quality of Life (QoL) in anophthalmic patients.

Methods

Cross-sectional, observational study of 100 anophthalmic patients, of whom 64% had an acryl implant, 6% an Allen implant, 1% a hydroxyapatite implant, 4% a dermis fat graft, 16% no implant, and 9% an unknown implant. We quantitatively assessed the motility of the prosthesis with Kestenbaum glasses and the QoL with a validated questionnaire covering five domains: General functional abilities and care, wearing comfort, physical appearance, psychological and social functioning. Associations between measured prosthetic eye motility, patient-perceived motility, and satisfaction were made.

Results

Motility of the prosthesis was impaired with an average loss of 76%, and correlated with Cosmetic satisfaction (adduction P = .02, abduction P = .008, elevation P = .04) and Social satisfaction (adduction P = .03, abduction P = .003). The patient-perceived motility of the prosthesis correlated with General functioning abilities (horizontal P = .0004, vertical P = .0004), Comfort (horizontal P = .001, vertical P = .003), Cosmetic satisfaction (horizontal P = .0002, vertical P = .0002), Psychological satisfaction (horizontal P = .001, vertical P = .001), and Social satisfaction (horizontal P = .002, vertical P = .003).

Conclusions

Ocular prosthetic motility has a significant impact on patient-perceived satisfaction and physical appearance, and predicts coping with the prosthetic condition on the psychosocial level. This highlights the need of introducing patient-reported outcome measures in the prosthetic rehabilitation of the anophthalmic patient.

KEYWORDS:

• Anophthalmic rehabilitation
• ocular prosthesis
• orbital socket
• patient-reported outcome
• quality of life

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.