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AAO plenary session to feature WHO vision report
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A representative from the World Health Organization will share findings from the World Vision Report during the plenary session of the American Academy of Optometry’s annual meeting in Orlando.
coordinator of Blindness and Deafness Prevention, Disability and Rehabilitation for the World Health Organization (WHO), will discuss some of WHO’s new initiatives, in particular, this vison report, scheduled to be released Oct. 9, according to the session’s moderator, Timothy T. McMahon, OD, FAAO.
The report presents the distribution of eye disease and blindness around the world and the disease burden this poses on countries and regions. Eye care providers will need to address this public health crisis, and the specific human resource requirements will be discussed.
Other plenary speakers include Kovin Naidoo, OD, PhD, FAAO, and Sandra Block, OD, MPH, FAAO, who were also instrumental in developing the report. Naidoo will discuss the report’s relevant to optometry from a global perspective, and Block will concentrate on its relevance to North American optometry, McMahon told Primary Care Optometry News.
“This international theme is in keeping with the academy’s first ever joint meeting, this year cosponsoring with the World Congress of Optometry,” McMahon said.
The Anterior Segment Section symposium at this year’s academy’s meeting will focus on rosacea and meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD).
Scott Han, OD, FAAO, will moderate a panel that will review the link between rosacea, ocular rosacea and MGD. “As optometry moves more and more to in office procedure-based treatments, we need to learn which procedures are available and beneficial for our patients,” he told PCON.
Panelist Yolanda Rosi Helfrich, MD, will cover rosacea, focusing on clinical features, epidemiology, pathogenesis, genetics, histopathology, differential diagnoses, and complications and comorbidities.
Kelly Nichols, OD, MPH, PhD, FAAO, will discuss ocular rosacea and MGD, covering the definition of MGD according to the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society MGD workshop, classification, anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, tear film physiology and structure, epidemiology, risk factors, diagnosis, grading and management.
Panelist Whitney Hauser, OD, will cover treatments for ocular rosacea and MGD, including thermal, intense pulsed light, medications, meibomian gland probing and lid.
The plenary session will be held Oct. 23, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The Anterior Segment Section symposium will be held Oct. 25, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Primary Care Optometry News/Healio is co-sponsoring both events. – by Nancy Hemphill, ELS, FAAO
Disclosure: No products were mentioned that would necessitate financial disclosures.