Comanagement News

I am a lifelong Trekkie. I watched the original Star Trek show on TV with my dad and brother and we were big fans before it was popular with the rest of the country. I sent away for the Star Fleet Command emblem and wore it on my jacket in high school.

With February designated as Age-Related Macular Degeneration Month, the International Academy of Low Vision Specialists is calling attention to recent advancements and resources available in low vision.

Our last blog looked primarily at macular sources of reduced acuity that are frequently seen in a cataract patient and occur much more frequently than subtle corneal vision loss.

A 63-year-old female presented to the clinic for evaluation of reduced vision. She had undergone uneventful cataract surgery during which a +25-D three-piece acrylic intraocular lens was placed in each eye at our facility approximately 3 months previous. The refractive target for both eyes was emmetropia. As the patient did not live locally, her postoperative care was provided by her referring optometrist.

Mild traumatic brain injury is a serious concussive injury induced by biomechanical forces and not easily detectable by neuro-imaging. It results in various visual, perceptual, oculomotor and oculovestibular dysfunctions interfering with numerous activities of daily living.

The world-renowned British academician and rheumatologist, Verna Wright, MD, once quipped, “Clinicians may all too easily spend years writing ‘doing well’ in the notes of a patient who has become progressively crippled before their eyes.” This is sad but, unfortunately, true to a certain extent.

Optometry is in a unique position to detect autoimmune disease, as inflammatory markers can present early in the eye.

On February 9, Federal Trade Commission staff submitted comment to the Washington State Legislature concerning proposed legislation, Substitute Senate Bill 5411/H.B. 1473, that would, among other things, restrict the use of telehealth eye care in which a practitioner distant from a patient uses data received by telecommunications as the basis for a prescription for corrective lenses.

Contact lenses that elute drugs and those that measure glucose may be available in the near future if technologies being developed by OcuMedic Inc. and i-Chek prove successful.

Our last blog discussed how cataract surgery has the potential to influence other ocular problems, and we looked at corneal sources of vision loss that need to be disentangled from cataract-induced vision loss, including other vision-limiting pathology, corneal irregularity limiting refractive outcomes and dry eye.