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The optometrist’s job often necessitates looking further than the eye
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To the casual observer, our job probably appears pretty easy. We manage the eye. While a sophisticated organ, it is, after all, an orb measuring a mere 1 inch in diameter.
It is a fairly small “workplace” in which to spend our days and, by virtue of its tiny dimensions, should be fairly easy to master. In fact, one might say that it could conceivably become a bit boring after awhile. After all, if an eye is myopic we prescribe minus lenses and if it is hyperopic we prescribe plus. It all appears so easy.
Navigating, measuring the eye
As painful as it is to admit, there is a little truth to the aforementioned statement. Each and every day we spend the vast majority of our time navigating within this little structure we call the human eye. As primary eye care providers, we perform many of the same tasks over and over again. We measure the eye, test its functionality and assess its health.
Again, it all appears so easy. In reality, it is precisely here where any notions that caring for the eye is a simple task should end.
Early in our training we learn that the human eye is not merely an organ that functions in isolation. While we do spend a great deal of time measuring refractive status, assessing functionality and monitoring ocular health, we also realize that this journey often takes us far beyond the eye itself. In fact, this “journey” is especially evident in this issue of Primary Care Optometry News.
Health issues take us beyond the eye
In his research involving computer vision ergonomics, Dr. Sheedy reminds us in this related article that the solution to computer vision syndrome often goes beyond determining the optimal refractive error correction. We have long known that workstation ergonomics and lighting are critical and, now, Dr. Sheedy’s research identifies the significant role that computer fonts play in visual comfort and function.
In a similar fashion, in this article Drs. Brown, Durrie, Lindstrom and Shaw-McMinn discuss their research involving NeuroVision technology and how it is improving vision in certain patients. This well grounded discipline employs the concept of neuroadaptation to optimize visual processing in the brain, potentially improving vision in amblyopes, low myopes, early presbyopes and multifocal IOL patients …. without the need for corrective lenses or additional surgery.
Finally, in the article on transient visual obscurations (TVOs), Drs. Mann, McCall, Semes, Skorin and Thimons provide an exceptional overview of this clinical phenomenon and its systemic implications. Suffice it to say, whether monocular or binocular, identifying the etiology of TVOs goes well beyond the eye.
In short, this is the enigma we all know as the human eye. It is an organ for which, at times, the solution is rather straightforward and, at other times, incredibly complex. As this is a reality of every patient encounter, we should always be mindful of the potential to look beyond the eye.
Maybe it does not appear so easy, after all.
See Dr. Leo P. Semes present at PCON’s 2-credit course held during SECO 2009! Click here for details