ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 1996 TAG: 9603270056
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT O'HARROW JR. THE WASHINGTON POST FAIRFAX
NOTE: Above
THE DEVICE IN HIS DOCTOR'S OFFICE was as big as a phone booth. His, the size of a briefcase, may help rural or homebound patients.
The idea came to 17-year-old Ian Hagemann in September, after a visit to his eye doctor. He had seen the machine his doctor used to diagnose eye diseases and brain disorders, and he wondered why it had to be so large, nearly the size of a telephone booth.
So the Fairfax County high school senior followed his instincts. He invented his own machine.
Using about $100 worth of computer chips, speakers and other supplies, Hagemann designed and built a portable version of the $20,000-plus device, known as a visual field analyzer.
Ophthalmologists say the teen-ager's creation, if put into mass production, would make it easier to screen poor people, rural residents and elderly shut-ins.
``As far as I know, Ian has built the first briefcase-size visual field analyzer in the country,'' said Timothy Malone, an ophthalmologist and faculty member of Georgetown University's Center for Sight, who coached Hagemann on the fundamentals of vision.
``I teach a lot of people who are already through medical school, and this kid is as bright as some of them,'' Malone said.
Hagemann, who attends Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Annandale and lives in Great Falls, has applied for a patent on his invention. In the meantime, the portable device has earned him first place in the National Science Teachers Association's annual Duracell-NSTA Scholarship Competition with a prize of a $20,000 savings bond.
A National Merit finalist who got a perfect 1,600 on the Scholastic Assessment Test, Hagemann has taken courses in micro-electronics, engineering, computer science and calculus. And he has always tinkered, he said, taking clocks and computers apart and trying to put them back together.
Hagemann said he worked on the ophthalmology project because he was captivated by the elegance of how visual field analyzers test for clues about brain tumors, strokes and eye diseases such as glaucoma.
The machines flash pinpoints of light into a patient's retina. If the patient can see the light, it means that point on the retina works. By moving the flashing light dozens of times and mapping patient responses, a doctor can make a remarkably accurate diagnosis about the health of optic nerves.
``It's just so neat and sort of elegant that there's this window into the brain,'' said Hagemann, who wore faded jeans, a flannel shirt and scuffed tennis shoes last week as he tinkered in Thomas Jefferson's micro-electronics lab, where he spent many of the 150 hours it took to build his machine.
Hagemann read several books about vision while making the device and consulted Malone, his family's eye doctor, who gave him access to his visual field analyzer.
Hagemann's final version looks like a large laptop computer. It has two small pads where patients rest their chin, and it flashes lights from behind a white plastic screen. It also uses several computer chips to store patient information, as well as a recorded voice that guides patients through each step of the exam.
Hagemann laughs about how the machine talks. ``It's the voice of one of my friends who has a very smooth voice, sort of a James Earl Jones voice,'' he said.
Hagemann said he would be thrilled if his machine helped people who don't normally have access to eye-disease screening.
``This probably is not going to change the world,'' he said. ``But if it can help one or two people, that's sort of what I'm going for.''
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Ian Hagemann spends many hours in theby CNBmicro-electronics lab at Thomas Jefferson High School in Annandale.