BLOG: Trauma prevention requires as much creativity as mechanisms of injury
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Across the globe each year, nearly 55 million people suffer an eye injury. Roughly half of those will permanently lead to a reduction in vision, and almost a million will be hospitalized.
We in the field know all too well how effective prevention is in blunting this epidemic of injury and how proper treatment leads to far better outcomes.
Injuries seen in Ukraine, the subject of the heartbreaking cover story in this issue of Healio | OSN, are very similar to those treated by a nationwide team of ophthalmologists in Armenia, which is supported by the Armenian EyeCare Project, a California nonprofit with which I have been deeply involved for 25 years. The region of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnically Armenian enclave just 500 miles from Ukraine, has been under attack and prolonged blockade by forces in neighboring Azerbaijan. Shrapnel and blast injuries to the eye often caused by drone attacks lead to blinding injury through every level of the eye, from the cornea to the posterior sclera. Tragically, the Armenian Ministry of Defense provided eye protection to soldiers and required its use near combat zones, but the safety glasses themselves were impractical, fogging and interfering with helmets and other body armor, so the young soldiers often stored them on the forehead of their helmets, leaving their precious eyes vulnerable to unpredictable blasts.
Seeing these many unnecessary injuries, the frontline ophthalmologists supported by our project made an appeal for better eyewear. Rick Hill, the glaucoma specialist who invented the iStent (Glaukos), has been a crucial volunteer with our project for nearly 30 years. Rick got to work finding a solution. With his capable guidance, our project is now securing protective eyewear better designed for military use for a total cost of just $50,000 to support all frontline personnel. It’s inestimable how many mothers’ tears will be prevented by the implementation of these new protective devices. And the cost of protecting a whole army from eye injury might be less than that to treat one injured soldier.
Indeed, simple creativity pays off in preventing blindness. SightLife, the nonprofit now affiliated with the Himalayan Cataract Project, found similar success in the small villages in Nepal, where most small corneal abrasions used to turn into infection and often blinding corneal scar requiring a transplant. Turning to prevention, SightLife taught local village caregivers to address virtually all eye injuries early with antibiotic ointment given to the patient from a supply provided by SightLife. In these remote locations, many corneal abrasions now heal uneventfully, as most do in the United States, where capable primary emergency care is available. SightLife’s solution was simple, inexpensive and brilliant.
War zones and underserved areas remind us how fragile our vision is and how important it is for us to enable people to avoid unintentionally becoming our emergency patients. Whether we practice in a war zone or in peaceful suburbia, we eye care providers each must harness creativity to educate the public on how to prevent the heartbreak of blinding eye trauma.
Follow @DrHovanesian on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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