Why Daily Contacts Are So Popular
by Bear Eye Care
Blog
Recent Census Bureau data shows a population of approximately 70 million baby boomers (the generation born from 1946-1964). What does that have to do with low vision you may ask? Approximately 40 million people worldwide have some sort of blindness, and aging increases the incidence of macular degeneration and other vision impairment that qualifies them as “low vision” persons.
Low vision is a condition of the eye in which the vision falls below 20/70 in the better seeing eye. It impairs the recipients, rendering them unable to perform daily tasks that others take for granted. With this rising aging population, the awareness of low vision therapy, diagnosis, and treatments are more widely available.
Low vision treatment can help people recover from decreased visual function due to retinal disease, brain injury, neurological damage, and other causes.
It is not only the elderly population that is affected--approximately 20% of low vision patients are children under the age of 18. Childhood genetic disorders of the eye such as retinitis pigmentosa, albinism, Bests disease, ROP, rod/cone disorders, and glaucoma are among the causes of low vision in the pediatric population.
What can be done to help these millions?
There are eye care practitioners and therapists that specialize in low vision. They train patients to adjust their current lifestyles to make them more independent and utilize the current salvageable vision they do have. For example, if a person has lost their central vision due to macular degeneration, they can be trained to use their peripheral vision for many tasks.
Because patients with low vision cannot be functionally corrected with regular eye glasses, the use of telescopes, magnifiers, computer generated aids, training, biofeedback, and optical magnification devices are among some of the resources available to help. Occupational therapists also employ orientation and mobility assistance to help patients in their daily living skills.
There are many technologies that help to improve vision. One such technology is a bionic eye device that uses a pair of glasses with a camera that transmits video data to an implant in the back of that patients eye (the retina). This device uses technology similar to cochlear implants that stimulate auditory nerve signals to restore hearing. In the same way, visual impulses can be restored by stimulating neurons in the retina, brain, or optic nerve.
Maybe the Bionic Man TV series wasn’t too far out there and can someday be a reality............restoring vision to millions.
For more valuable information on low vision visit:
American Optometric Association AOA
American Occupational Therapy Association AOTA
American Academy of Ophthalmology AAO
What Is Intraoperative Aberrometry?
Yes, that is a mouthful, but the concept isn’t quite as hard as the name.
An Intraoperative Aberrometer is an instrument we can use in the operating room to help us determine the correct power of the implant we put in your eye during cataract surgery.
Cataract surgery is the removal of the cloudy natural lens of your eye and the insertion of a new artificial lens inside your eye called an intraocular lens (IOL).
The cloudy cataract that we are removing has focusing power (think of a lens in a camera) and when that lens is removed, we need to insert an artificial lens in its place to replace that focusing power. The amount of focusing power the new IOL needs has to match the shape and curvature of your eye.
To determine what power of lens we select to put in your eye, we need to measure the shape and curvature of your eye prior to surgery. Once we get those measurements, we can plug those numbers into several different formulas to try and get the most accurate prediction of what power lens you need.
Overall, those measurements and formulas are very good at accurately predicting what power lens you should have. There are, however, several eye types where those measurements and formulas are less accurate at predicting the proper power of the replacement lens.
Long Eyes: People who are very nearsighted usually have eyes that are much longer than average. This adds some difficulty with the accuracy of both the measurements and the formulas. There are special formulas for long eyes but even those are less accurate than formulas for normal length eyes.
Short Eyes: People who are significantly farsighted tend to have shorter-than-normal eyes. Basically, the same issues hold true for them as the ones for longer eyes noted above.
Eyes with previous refractive surgery (LASIK, PRK, RK): These surgeries all change the normal shape of the cornea. This makes the formulas we use on eyes that have had previous surgery not work as well when the normal shape of the cornea has been altered.
This is where intraoperative aberrometry comes in. The machine takes the measurements that we do before surgery and then remeasures the eye while you are on the operating room table after the cataract is removed and before the new implant is placed inside the eye. It then presents the surgeon with the power of the implant that the aberrometer thinks is the correct one. Unfortunately, the power that the aberrometer selects isn’t always exactly right, but with the combination of the pre-surgery measurements and the intra-surgery measurements the overall accuracy is significantly enhanced.
The intraoperative aberrometry is also very helpful in choosing the power of specialty lenses like multi-focal and toric lenses.
We would encourage you to consider adding intraoperative aberrometry to your cataract surgery procedure if you have either a long or short eye (usually manifested as a high prescription in your glasses) or if you have had any previous refractive surgery.
Article contributed by Dr. Brian Wnorowski, M.D.
| Monday | 9:00am — 4:00pm |
| Tuesday | 8:45am — 4:00pm |
| Wednesday | 8:45am — 1:00pm |
| Thursday | 8:45am — 4:00pm |
| Friday | by appointment only |
| *Lunch 1:00-2:00 | |
