Could AI help prevent diabetes-related sight loss?

This is the second feature in a six-part series that is looking at how AI is changing medical research and treatments.

Terry Quinn was only in his teens when he was diagnosed with diabetes. In some ways he rebelled against the label and frequent tests, not wanting to feel different.
His biggest fear was of someday needing to have his foot amputated. Vision loss, another possible complication of diabetes, wasn’t really on his radar. “I never thought I’d lose my sight,” says Quinn, who lives in West Yorkshire.
But one day he noticed bleeding in his eye. Doctors told him he had diabetic retinopathy: diabetes-related damage to blood vessels in the retinas. This required laser treatments and then injections.
Eventually the treatments weren’t enough to prevent the deterioration of his vision. He would hurt his shoulder walking into lampposts. He couldn’t make out his son’s face. And he had to give up driving.
“I felt pathetic. I felt like this shadow of a man that couldn’t do anything,” he remembers.
One thing that helped him climb out of his despair was the support of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, which connected him with a black Labrador named Spencer. “He saved my life,” says Quinn, who is now a fundraiser for Guide Dogs.