HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR
Tomorrow is the first blank page of 365 page book,
Write a good one.  Aamer Niazi

Role of Optometrists in the society

Optometry (a health care profession concerned with the health of the eyes and related structures, as well as vision, visual systems, and vision information processing in humans )is a field that is going strong with increasing number of professionals being trained who eventually commence practice. There is a definite increase in the demand for quality optometric treatment due in part to some of the following factors:

o Frequent and abrupt changes in lifestyle-making it hectic
o Unhealthy diets
o Long hours in front of computers and television sets
o Harmful rays of the sun.

All of the factors above can contribute towards excessive strain on the eyesight. The only means by which you can safeguard your eyes and maintain perfect vision is visiting an optometrist (A medical professional who examines and tests the eyes for disease and treats visual disorders by prescribing corrective lenses and/or vision therapy. In many states, optometrists are licensed to use diagnostic and therapeutic drugs to treat certain ocular diseases)at timely intervals for an eye check up.

 

People generally avoid going to optometrists for an eye check up till they face the following difficulties:

o Difficulty in reading street signs and billboards.
o Words in a book or magazine appear blurred and hazy posing problems in reading.
o While walking down a street accidentally bumping into walls or street signs that were not visible.

If any or all of the above happens, it is time you paid your optometrist an urgent visit. They are responsible for the well being of your eyesight. They examine your eyes and diagnose eye related problems such as poor vision. Their treatment to correct poor eyesight does not consist of a bottle of "great vision" pills or a shot of eyesight injection. They correct vision with lenses and similar optical aids. Eyeglasses and contact lenses are usually prescribed by such professionals.

The following is what may likely happen if you visit an optometrist's office. Upon entering the premises you will be immediately shown a chair to sit down in. Before the lenses are offered you will have to undergo a vision test to check your vision acuity. This exam determines whether you are short or far sighted. After this test the Optometrist will proceed to determine the level of prescription you require in your glasses and whether you at all need to wear glasses.

At the office, they check your vision coordination, vision depth, color viewing and recognition, as well as your capability to focus. After this a glaucoma test is done to detect other diseases that are eye-related. For instance, if you suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes or cancer-these could have serious repercussions on your eyes. So the Optometrist will test all such possibilities. Of course they will also provide you with your treatments and give eye therapy.

Optometrists fall into the category of general practitioners. Most of their patients are children and elderly people. There are some of them who practice in private. It is a mistaken assumption that optometry is all about looking into eyes throughout the day. These eye care professionals also have to run an office. They perform functions such as hiring staff, billing, new patient services, maintaining electronic records. Besides they have to order supplies of equipment, lenses and medicines and take care of other administrative stuff to run their office.

Vision problems with increasing rates of diabetes

Vision problems that can’t be corrected with eyeglasses are on the rise among Americans age 20 and older, a new study finds. And the growing prevalence of these problems may be partially related to increasing rates of diabetes.

 

Researchers reported that nonrefractive visual impairment, a vision problem not caused by the need for eyeglasses, rose 21 percent, from 1.4 percent between 1999 and 2002 to 1.7 percent between 2005 and 2008. 

During the same time period, the number of people with diabetes has climbed from 6.5 percent in 1998 to 10.7 percent in 2007 and 11.3 percent in 2010.

Younger adults are especially at risk for vision problems, the study reported. Among non-Hispanic whites ages 20 to 39, nonrefractive visual impairment soared by 40 percent, climing from 0.5 percent during the 1999-2002 period to 0.7 percent during the 2005-2008 period. While the increase may sound small, the authors of an accompanying editorial wrote that "with about 230 million people aged 20 years and older in the U.S. population, a 0.3% increase could potentially represent an increase of almost 700,000 individuals with nonrefractive visual impairment over a relatively short time."

The study researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), an ongoing survey of the health and nutritional status of Americans. This particular survey examined information on 10,480 people ages 20 and older.

The most common causes of nonrefractive visual impairment in the U.S. are age related macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and other retinal disorders, the study noted.

Diabetic retinopathy, which can affect people with Type 1 or Type diabetes, is caused by damage to the small blood vessels in the retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, according to the National Eye Institute. This disorder is the leading cause of blindness in Americans 40 and older. Diabetes can also increase the risk of cataracts and glaucoma.

Survey found that people who were older, who were living in poverty and who had been diagnosed with diabetes 10 or more years previously had the most risk for nonrefractive visual impairment. However, the researchers wrote, "Among these risk factors, only the latter has increased in prevalence during the two time periods considered."

An estimated 25.8 million children and adults in the U.S. have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Nearly two million new cases were diagnosed in people 20 and older in 2010.

The study findings concern serious health problems, the researchers said. "Blindness and visual impairment are associated with increased medical care expenditure, decreased work productivity and decreased quality-adjusted life years," the researchers wrote. "If the current finding becomes a persisting trend, it could result in increasing rates of disability in the U.S. population."

Femtosecond LASIK flap creation poses little added risk to corneal endothelium

Corneal clarity and function depend on an intact and healthy corneal endothelium, and surgical procedures of the cornea should not adversely affect this nonregenerative cell layer,” the study authors said.

The prospective, randomized study included 21 patients with a mean age of 38 years and myopia or myopic astigmatism. Patients underwent LASIK with mechanical microkeratome flap creation in one eye and femtosecond laser flap creation in the fellow eye. 

The corneal endothelium was evaluated preoperatively and 3 and 5 years postoperatively.

Study results showed similar endothelial cell densities at 5 years in the groups that underwent microkeratome flap creation and femtosecond laser flap creation.

Mean endothelial cell loss was 0.8% in the femtosecond flap group and 0.4% in the mechanical microkeratome group at 5 years; the between-group difference was statistically insignificant.

Data showed no linear relationship between endothelial cell loss and contact lens wear, residual bed thickness or preoperative refractive error, the authors said.

Delayed Rapid eye movements in glaucoma patients

Rapid eye movements are significantly delayed in patients with glaucoma.

The findings may shed light on why glaucoma patients are at an increased risk of falls and car accidents.

The researchers used head-mounted devices to measure saccadic (rapid) eye movements of individuals with and without glaucoma. They found that people with early, moderate or advanced glaucoma had significantly delayed rapid eye movements compared with individuals without the condition.

Lead study author and ophthalmologist, Neeru Gupta, said: “Now that we know that eye movement reaction times are delayed in people with glaucoma there is an opportunity to understand the effects of glaucoma on daily activities of living that most of us take for granted, such as walking up and down stairs, driving, navigating and reading.

“Further studies are needed to determine pathological processes implicated in delayed initiation of saccades, and to assess whether alterations of saccades affects daily activities in glaucoma patients.”

Achievment of POS Punjab Chapter

Pakistan Optometric Society acknowleged the services of Punjab Chapter and presented a shield to the active members of the cabinet. The shield was presented by Dr Brien Holden to Iqbal Javed, Aamer Niazi, Lubna Iram, Arooj Niaz, Shehreen Azam and Sadia. President Pakistan Optometric Society, Mr Waqas, highlighted the activities and achievments of Punjab Chapter in the year 2012 and appreciated their excellent work and wish them best of luck for the future.

Dr Brien Holden presenting the shield to POS Punjab Chapter team

Sweet Memories- 2nd Annual Optometric Conference 2012,Islamabad

Hi!

I am pleased to share the happy and sweet moments of the 2nd Optometric conference held at Islamabad Hotel on 30-01 dec 2012.

Honourable Prof Daud Khan  

 

Mr. Brien Holding representing Gold Medal to Prof Daud Khan

 

Sir Hasan Minto and Mr Waqas with the two distinguished Guests

 

 

Mr Waqas "President POS"

Mr Kashif Ahmedzai chairing the conference

 

 The Cabinet members POS Punjab Chapter at the Conference

 

Mr Hasan Minto & Mr Ali Minto

Mr Brien Holding recieving shield and Gold medal from Mr Waqas and Mr Kashif

 

 

Dr Wajid with Dr Brien Holding

 

POS Punjab Chapter with Dr Brien Holding

Aamer Niazi General Secretary POS Punjab with Dr Brien Holding

Honourable Dr Haroon Awan, Dr Wajid Ali,Dr Brien Holding, Mr Kashif and Mr Waqas

POS Punjab Chapter Cabinet at the venue

The Two Friends meeting after 12 years.

The Great SHAH JI " Syed Zamir Hussain Shah" and Aamer Niazi

The real friends together at conference after 12 years.

The Legendary Hasan Minto giving his thoughts and highlighting the future of Optometry in Pakistan

What Should You "Do and Don't" When You Scratch Your Eye

 Perhaps something strikes in your eye or a little kid unintentionally punches you in the eye. Then, maybe right away or even time later, you encounter discomfort, the sensation that something is trapped in your eye, or ripping and swelling. Possibilities are you have scratched your eye — a issue also known as a cornael abrasion.

Corneal abrasion is a scratch or scrape the cornea, the obvious, circular dome protecting the Iris and pupil. By helping to focus light as it enters the eye, the cornea performs an essential part in perspective. When a cornael abrasion scratch the cornea, it can affect vision. Besides the issues described above, other cornael abrasion signs can consist of blurry vision,sensitivity to light and headache.

If you do scratch your eye, here are some things you should — and should not — do:
   

1.  Wash your eye with saline remedy or water that is fresh. If you don't have an eyecup, use a little, fresh cup. Relax the rim of the cup on the cuboid at the platform of your eye plug, below your reduced eye lid. The water or saline remedy may cleanse the international item from your eye.
2. Blinking can help get rid of little pieces of dirt or sand in your eye.
3. Take your higher eye lid over your reduced eye lid. The eyelash from your reduced eye lid may be able to sweep away any international item captured beneath your higher eye lid.
4.  Use sunglasses. If your eye is delicate to mild sunlight because of the scratch, sunglasses will reduce the signs while you cure.
5. DON'T rub your eye. You may be influenced to do so, but massaging your eye can create the abrasion more intense.
6. DON'T contact your eye with anything. Fingertips, pure cotton swabs and other things won't help eliminate the foreign body and could harm your eye more. Keep in mind that the item that triggered the scratch could be gone even though you still experience as if something is in your eye.
7.  DON'T wear your contacts. Wearing contacts will slow the recovery procedure and could cause issues.

See your ophthalmologist (Eye M.D.) if you scrtch your eye. Most cornael cuts are minimal and will cure on their own in a few times. Your ophthalmologist may cure a cornael abrasion with anti-biotic eye drops or ointment or use anabolic steroid eyedrops to decrease swelling and decrease the possibility of scarring damage. The best way to cope with a scraped eye, though, is to prevent getting one in the first position. If you are going to be involved in an action where you danger hurting your eye, make sure you use safety sunglasses.

Eye Care: Even More Essential to Females Over 40

Most of us be familiar with that once you turn 40, your sight probably aren't going to be what they used to. Sure enough, I was 40 when I started having issues studying close up. My daily work on the computer wasn't assisting. Too often, females who have never had visible issues before will let their signs go uncontrolled, supposing it is just one of the many things that changes with age.

Cost is another reason that a lady may keep delaying an eye examination. Even though they may have wellness insurance protection policy, it may not cover perspective. Often, this is handled as a individual kind of insurance protection like dental. Although technology has innovative in the diagnostics and therapies for various conditions, charges for visible care have risen as well.

 

There are several reasons that females should never skip their annually eye examination, especially after they are 40 years of age. Ladies who have already approved the change of life are at an even greater risk of creating eye issues that include other wellness issues such as diabetic issues and hypertension.

Although men also have the same issues with their sight once they arrive at the age of 40, females are more vulnerable to serious circumstances that can cause visible signs like glaucoma, hypothyroid situation and cataracts. Of those individuals who contact glaucoma, more females are also likely to create loss of sight as a result of the situation.

On a positive observe, those females who do have insurance protection may still be left having the invoice for their eye examination and cups, but if there is an actual situation or situation that is considered healthcare, insurance protection will usually conquer in to pay at least a part of the costs.

There are two different types of eye care: Opticians and eye specialists. While both are experienced and execute a number of solutions for those requiring perspective care, the eye physician is certified only to give main care such as examinations, analysis and low perspective treatment such as some minimal operations.

In comparison, an ophthalmologist is a physician with visible care as their specialised. They is capable of doing the same features as the eye physician as well as more complicated therapies and operations.While you will probably low cost by seeing a eye physician for your basic eye care, the solutions of an ophthalmologist will probably be required if you are clinically identified as having a more serious situation that needs their innovative level of training and skills. Insurance companies may also identify between the two when considering which kind of protection they will provide.

You know that your vision is valuable to you and capturing issues in the beginning can avoid you from struggling more serious repercussions in the future. Don't neglect signs that may be something more than natural again and which may be easily enhanced. Visit an eye care company to create sure your sight are healthy. If not, consider the options available to you from there. If cash is an issue, talk to the doctor's office to see if there is help available to you. Some companies help with offering proper maintain those without being insured plan and so do some healthcare features. Expenses may be an option so that you can fit your eye care into your budget.Women are often more vulnerable to circumstances and illnesses that might lead to signs which impact their perspective. Not always a indication of getting older, females over 40 should always have regular examinations and see their eye care company when they experience problems seeing.

The Flash Light Goes Digital

Highly precise recognition of relative afferent pupillary defect is under study as a testing device for several circumstances.

The value of discovering a relative afferent pupillary defect has been known for a while. Circumstances that have been associated with RAPD include glaucoma, macular damage, ischemic retinal condition, retinal detachment, vitreous lose blood, optic neuritis and rays harm. In previous times, theflash light check was often conducted in the medical center in an attempt to notice this indication, but the check is difficult to execute personally, not consistent and not easily measurable. Today, it’s less-often conducted.

“The problem is that in scientific exercise sufferers are usually dilated prior to the ophthalmologist’s examination,” notices Eileen Colvard, MD, FACS, scientific lecturer of ophthalmology at the School of Southeast Florida School of Medication and home of the Colvard Eye Center in Encino, Florida. “This means that perspective loss due to optic sensors problems is often neglected, which can have powerful repercussions. Pituitary cancers and sphenoid variety meningiomas can be skipped, and optic sensors harm due to temporary arteritis can be skipped or have the analysis late.”

The idea of digitizing this check as a analytic device has been efficiently researched in previous times, using the Procyon P3000 binocular pupillometer. Now, a lately available system called the RAPDx (Konan Medical, Irvine, Calif.) is growing this probability by enabling physicians and scientists to check several modifications of stimulating elements and moment.

The RAPDx system information and quantifies how a subject’s students reply to various extremes, shades and styles of light stimulating elements, such as partially area stimulating elements (e.g., quadrants, macula-only, macula-sparing). While the impacted person is watching binocularly, the product provides: monocular stimulating elements changing between each eye (similar to the flash light test); computerized eye tracking; several pleasure and recording; producing of reactions in both eyes; hearing hints to easily simplify testing; and computerized flicker recognition with automated retesting for blink-affected reactions. The instrument’s software quickly examines student reactions and provides number information. One form in which the information can be provided is the “RAPDx Trademark,” a information that shows information of the student reactions eventually, such as constraint beginning latency, speed and plenitude, and restoration speed. (See p. 18.) It can also overlay a normal, common reaction bend for evaluation. The company is creating normative data source.

Clinicians review that the product is easy to use; the conventional examining operate takes about three minutes. The check can be conducted by a specialist, and does not require any reaction from the topic.

RAPD and Glaucoma

As revealed in the 2012 Organization for Research in Perspective and Ophthalmology summary, the product has been able to distinguish individuals with glaucoma (defined as having visible area reduction and optic cd abnormalities) from normals, with a uniqueness of 97 % and a level of sensitivity of 80 %. To accomplish this level of uniqueness and level of sensitivity, the team mixed different factors the product is able to evaluate.

“Glaucoma harm is often more serious in one eye,” notices Dr. Alter. “Not amazingly, we discovered that sufferers with glaucoma had a greater asymmetry in student constraint than regular topics. The distinction in plenitude of student reaction was the most powerful forecaster, but the distinction in time to constraint (latency) between the two sight was also a powerful predictor—although including the latter forecaster did not enhance the algorithm’s analytic ability. The student reaction asymmetry also associated with asymmetry in the visible area check or retinal sensors linens part width. These connections might be described by the decrease in ganglion tissues in sight with glaucoma, leading to small or late pupillary reaction.

“We also discovered that personal sight with glaucomatous harm had small constraint and a late student reaction in comparison to regular sight,” she carries on. “Patients with less severe condition often have relatively symmetrical harm between the two sight, leading to pretty symmetrical pupillary constraint, which decreases the level of sensitivity of the between-eye evaluation. That is one reason we’re mixing between-eye information and individual-eye information.”

Because glaucomatous harm is often asymmetric between the higher and lower visible areas, her team also evaluated how students addressed pleasure of different parts of the retina. “The producing principles different commonly for both regular topics and sufferers with glaucoma,” she says, “so this did not provide included information that might help us distinguish normals from those with glaucoma.”

Although the results are positive, Dr. Alter notices several restrictions to their research. “For one thing, this is a choose clinic-based research, and we’re improving our methods for highest possible performance,” she says. “Real-world performance could be better or more intense. Second, other eye circumstances, such as serious cataract, macular damage or suffering from diabetes retinopathy also impact pupillary reaction to light, so further examining would be needed to make a analysis. Third, although this system reimburses for flashing and features eye monitoring and other features, there are still some sufferers who cannot complete the check, or flicker too frequently. Past ocular surgery treatment or an infrequent eye shape can also restrict precise statistic, and there are other confounders that may impact student reaction such as age, medicines and other comorbidities. Lastly, our example size is small.”
 

2nd National Optometry Conference

Differences Between Ophthalmology and Optometry

How can you tell if you need to see an ophthalmology expert or an optometrist? If you are having concerns with your eyes, you may be looking through the list of local eye centers and wondering where you should turn. Before you call and set up an appointment, make sure you are seeing the right professional for your concern. There is a distinct difference between the two fields of medicine.

Ophthalmology

When you need total eye care, it is time to seek out a doctor of ophthalmology. This person has not only attended medical school, but also has gone through internships and residency. If you have concerns about conditions like glaucoma, this is the person to see. Sometimes medical conditions can affect the eyes, and this doctor can help make recommendations for patients dealing with things like diabetes. Even if you have any trauma to this area of the body, you want to see an ophthalmologist.

While all of these concerns and conditions fall to this doctor, you can still come in for a routine eye exam and regular eye care services. In severe cases, eye surgeries can be performed by this doctor, including plastic surgery to help with a drooping eyelid or even excessive wrinkling around this area of the body.

Optometry

Optometrists, while medical professionals, are not doctors. They have gone through a specific program after graduating from college that provides them with an additional degree in the field of optometry. If you need an eye exam or you are having trouble with your vision, this is the person to see. You can get a prescription for eyeglasses or contacts, and in some cases; you can get a prescription for different eye medicines as needed. Those that are nearsighted, farsighted, and struggling with astigmatism can find the help they need here.

On the other hand, it is possible for an optometrist to diagnose conditions like glaucoma or cataracts. Once the diagnosis has been made, patients can then be referred to a doctor of ophthalmology for treatment. After undergoing surgery, patients often see an optometrist for post-surgical care.

While both professionals offer help when it comes to eye care, they do have very different specialties. It is not uncommon for the two to work together to care for and treat a patient's condition. If you still have questions about which person you should see, you have several options. You can contact your health insurance company to find out if you have coverage and which office you should make an appointment with. You can also call the office of an ophthalmologist or the office of an optometrist and explain what type of assistance you are looking for. Either one will direct you to the proper office for care.