VIDEO: Improving quality of life in patients with dry eye

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

Of course, as clinicians, we all care about our patients' quality of life, but it has been somewhat under-recognized in dry eye disease. You know, it can be easy to say, "Oh, it's just dry eyes. You know, you're not losing your vision, you're not going blind." But ultimately, for our dry eye patients, especially patients with moderate plus disease, they do feel like they're losing their vision and they really notice a significant disruption in their day-to-day, a disruption in their quality of life, in particular, their ability to do tasks for extended periods of time.

If you think about everyone, you know, it doesn't matter what job you have today, a lot of us are on computers or devices. I tell my patients all the time, I'm a doctor and I'm constantly looking at this iPad all day long while I'm charting. And so to me, I feel like, you know, if I had to slow down my day because the screen got blurry every few seconds or if I didn't feel safe or comfortable driving at night because my vision wasn't consistent or I had more glare, well, that's meaningful. You know, it makes you change how you do your daily functions, it's changes how you interact socially. Unfortunately, I see it all the time where patients, as they progress in their disease, become more withdrawn, maybe even depressed and isolated because they don't feel like they can participate in all the same activities. So it's really important, I think, for us as clinicians to validate those feelings for these patients, but also to do, you know, as much as we can to diagnose dry eye disease.