Mandibular Overdentures on Four Immediately Loaded Mini-Implants Versus Two-Delayed Loaded Regular Implants: 1-Year, Two-Center RCT on Patient-Reported Outcomes.

Inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) are a heterogenous group of genetic eye disorders, affecting approximately 1 in 1000 people. Over 360 causative genes have been identified in the underlying pathology of IRDs, which cause photoreceptor and retinal pigment epithelium dysfunction with associated vision loss. Visual impairment arising from IRDs can substantially affect everyday functioning, including mobility, daily activities, social participation and psychological well-being. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is the most prevalent IRD, with an estimated global incidence of 1 in 3000. RP is characterised initially by rod photoreceptor degeneration leading to nyctalopia (night-blindness) and peripheral visual field loss, followed by cone involvement and eventual central vision impairment. Choroideremia (CHM) follows a similar pattern of peripheral-to-central deterioration, and both conditions are marked by relatively preserved visual acuity (VA) until later disease stages. Functional limitations are frequently reported by individuals with IRDs, particularly difficulties navigating in dim environments and avoiding peripheral hazards. Mobility is consistently identified as one of the most challenging domains in RP and is a primary focus of low-vision rehabilitation. These challenges may contribute to reduced independence, lower vision-related quality of life and elevated risk of anxiety and depression. Despite this burden, access to psychological support is inconsistent across services, and patients frequently report difficulty obtaining appropriate emotional or psychosocial care. This issue is particularly salient in conditions such as RP and CHM, where visual function and emotional states may interact. Taken together, the evidence suggests that ophthalmology services, the busiest outpatient department in the National Health Service (NHS), are not always equipped to identify and address the psychological dimensions of visual impairment. In response to growing service demands, UK health policy emphasises digital transformation within the NHS to improve care delivery, enhance remote support and promote timely access to clinical input. One emerging innovation in medicine is the collection and analysis of behavioural and physiological data from personal digital devices, such as smartphones, referred to as digital phenotyping. Digital phenotyping incorporates both passive data (e.g., physical activity) and active patient self-reports (e.g., patient-reported outcome measures [PROMs]) to create a real-time, context-rich picture of a patient’s functional and mental health status. This approach has demonstrated utility in remote monitoring across psychiatric relapse prediction and prevention, and post-treatment recovery in oncology. In ophthalmology, digital phenotyping may offer ecologically valid insights into real-world functioning in domains such as mobility, which may serve as useful surrogate markers of visual function or overall health status. By capturing day-to-day behavioural patterns, digital phenotyping may detect subtle changes not routinely identified during clinic-based assessments, thereby contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of patient experience. Such data could provide novel insights into disease impact, facilitate remote monitoring, enabling earlier identification of functional or psychological changes, and inform more timely and personalised interventions.