Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study was to investigate eye fatigue that could impair diagnostic accuracy by measuring the critical flicker fusion frequency (CFFF) before and after reading.
Materials and methods
CFFF was measured before and after about 4 h of health checkup reading in seven healthy volunteer radiologists. A questionnaire was also completed on duration of sleep the night before the experiment, average duration of sleep, and subjective fatigue using a visual analog scale (corrected to a 0–1 scale, 0 indicating the worst fatigue ever experienced).
Results
After-reading subjective fatigue was significantly greater (before 0.52 ± 0.15, after 0.42 ± 0.15), and CFFF was significantly lower (before 40.9 ± 2.4, after 39.9 ± 2.0). There was no significant correlation between subjective fatigue and CFFF, either before or after or between before- and after-reading differences in subjective fatigue and CFFF. Shorter duration of sleep the night before significantly correlated with lower CFFF (Pearson’s correlation coefficient): before 0.42, P = 0.0047; after 0.52, P = 0.0003.
Conclusion
CFFF declines after reading and can be considered useful as an indicator of fatigue induced by radiology reading. CFFF declines significantly when sleep is reduced the day before reading without correlation with subjective fatigue, meaning that sleep deprivation can cause an unaware decline in visual function.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lin YH, Chen CY, Lu SY, Lin YC. Visual fatigue during VDT work: effects of time-based and environment-based conditions. Displays 2008;29:487–492.
Simonson E. The fusion frequency of flicker as a criterion of central nervous system fatigue. Am J Ophthalmol 1959;47:556–565.
Martinez-Conde S, Macknik S, Hubel D. The function of bursts of spikes during visual fixation in the awake primate lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2002;99:13920–13925.
Shady S, MacLeod D, Fisher H. Adaptation from invisible flicker. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2004;101:5170–5173.
Carmel D, Lavie N, Rees G. Conscious awareness of flicker in humans involves frontal and parietal cortex. Curr Biol 2006; 16:907–911.
Krupinski E, Berbaum K. Measurement of visual strain in radiologists. Acad Radiol 2009;16:947–950.
Krupinski E, Berbaum K, Caldwell R, Schartz K, Kim J. Long radiology workdays reduce detection and accommodation accuracy. J Am Coll Radiol 2010;7:698–704.
Misiak H. The decrease of critical flicker frequency with age. Science 1951;113:551–552.
Bernardi L, Costa V, Shiroma L. Flicker perimetry in healthy subjects: influence of age and gender, learning effect and shortterm fluctuation. Arq Bras Oftalmol 2007;70:91–99.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Maeda, E., Yoshikawa, T., Hayashi, N. et al. Radiology reading-caused fatigue and measurement of eye strain with critical flicker fusion frequency. Jpn J Radiol 29, 483–487 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-011-0585-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-011-0585-7