optometry

BACKGROUND: Clinical training, supervision and practice are the most important aspects of health profession education, including optometry. Institutions implore various methods for students to gain access, exposure and experience in different clinical environments, away from their normal academic settings. AIM: This review aimed to investigate studies and related documentary evidence to determine existing standards and methods for educational institutions in conducting optometry clinical training at the external sites...

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Tear meniscus height (TMH) is an important clinical marker in dry eye diagnosis and management. PURPOSE: To evaluate the reproducibility and agreement of TMH measurements in non-clinical participants using the Oculus Keratograph 5 M, Medmont Meridia, and Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Spectralis SD-OCT). METHODS: Fifty-six participants (mean 43.8 ± 22.4 years) were recruited for this cross-sectional study...

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Accurate colour vision assessment is important in clinical settings to minimise false-positive errors and enhance the reliability of diagnoses outcomes. BACKGROUND: Colour vision testing is valuable in assessing the visual system, particularly given the high proportion of individuals with poor vision. This study aimed to determine the minimum visual acuity level required to perform a colour-vision test without errors. METHODS: After fogging the right eyes of 52 healthy participants using plus lenses to 1...

PURPOSE: To report the change in the magnitude of near exodeviation in children with symptomatic convergence insufficiency successfully treated with office-based vergence/accommodative therapy in the Convergence Insufficiency Treatment Trial-Attention and Reading Trial. METHODS: A total of 131 children 9-14 years of age with symptomatic convergence insufficiency classified as successfully treated with office-based vergence/accommodative therapy at the 16-week outcome visit were included...

PURPOSE: To examine the prevalence of loneliness and associated factors in young adults with vision impairment (VI), including quality of life (QoL) in India. METHODS: Two hundred and three VI young adults (18-35 years) and 219 age-matched non-VI (controls) adults completed the loneliness scale, WHOQOL-BREF, Social Network Index (SNI) (network diversity, people in network size and number of embedded network subscales) and questions regarding sociodemographic characteristics and independent mobility...

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Acute anterior uveitis (AAU) can lead to the thickening of the peripapillary retinal nerve fibre layer (pRNFL) and induce refractive changes during its active phase. BACKGROUND: AAU is a common form of uveitis characterised by inflammation in the anterior chamber. A notable prevalence of optical coherence tomography - defined pRNFL thickening was observed among patients with AAU. The alterations in pRNFL thickness and their associations with other relevant ocular parameters in patients with AAU were investigated...

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Near Vision Impairment (NVI) is common in developing countries. A substantial proportion of NVI can be addressed by providing spectacles. Innovative eye care programmes are needed to address NVI. Population-based epidemiological studies can provide vital data to plan such eye care service delivery models. BACKGROUND: To report the prevalence of NVI and effective Refractive Error Coverage (eREC) for near vision in West Godavari and Krishna districts in Andhra Pradesh, south India...

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the frequency and anterior segment optical coherence tomography parameters of patients with scleral fixated intraocular lenses (IOL) and reverse pupillary block (RPB). METHODS: Retrospective analysis at a tertiary care centre (Department for Ophthalmology and Optometry, Medical University of Vienna, Austria). We researched our records for patients who underwent scleral fixated IOL implantation from January 2018 till February 2023. Patients were included only if there was at least one adequate post-operative scan of anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) available...

Background : Visual acuity (VA) assessments are crucial in ophthalmology but traditionally rely on in-clinic evaluations. The emergence of telemedicine has spurred interest in creating dependable self-administered VA tests for use beyond standard clinical environments. This study evaluated the practicality and validity of a self-administered near VA card test against traditional Snellen and Rosenbaum Pocket Vision Screener (RPVS) methods for home monitoring and enhancing clinical workflow. Methods : In a cross-sectional study, a near VA card (Hadassah Self-Visual Acuity Screener (HSVA)) was developed with written and videotaped instructions for self-use...

PURPOSE: To investigate whether fractal dimension (FD), a retinal trait relating to vascular complexity and a potential "oculomics" biomarker for systemic disease, is applicable to a mixed-age, primary-care population. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data (96 individuals; 183 eyes; ages 18-81 years) from a university-based optometry clinic in Glasgow, Scotland, to study the association between FD and systemic health. We computed FD from color fundus images using Deep Approximation of Retinal Traits (DART), an artificial intelligence-based method designed to be more robust to poor image quality...

Adaptive teacher support fosters effective learning in one-to-one teaching sessions, which are a common way of learning complex visual tasks in the health sciences. Adaptive support is tailored to student needs, and this is difficult in complex visual tasks as visual problem-solving processes are covert and thus cannot be directly observed by the teacher. Eye-tracking apparatus can measure covert processes and make them visible in gaze displays: visualizations of where a student looks while executing a task...

INTRODUCTION: Corneal characteristics are unique to each eye and can vary among different levels of refractive errors. However, minimal data are available in the literature on corneal characteristics in myopic Malay school children including the difference between the low myopic group and the moderate myopic group. Therefore, this study aims to determine the corneal characteristics of myopic Malay school children and their associations with axial length. METHODS: A total of eighty-four data samples were extracted from forty-two myopic Malay school children...

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Understanding the awareness level of diabetes and diabetes-related eye diseases will help in developing better eye health education programmes and improve health-seeking behaviour in the community. BACKGROUND: Diabetes and diabetes related eye diseases are increasing in numbers both in urban and rural areas in India. There are limited data on awareness of diabetes and diabetes-related eye disease in rural communities of India. This study reports on awareness of diabetes and diabetes-related eye diseases in people aged ≥40 years from two rural districts of Telangana, India...

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PURPOSE: The corneal cap thickness is a vital parameter designed in small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE). The purpose was to investigate the changes in corneal subbasal nerve plexus (SNP) and stromal cells with different cap thicknesses and evaluate the optimized design for the surgery. METHODS: In this prospective, comparative, non-randomized study, a total of 108 eyes of 54 patients who underwent SMILE were allocated into three groups with different corneal cap thicknesses (110 μm, 120 μm or 130 μm group)...

Asthenopia is a group of eye discomfort syndromes with complex clinical manifestations, accompanied with systemic symptoms or not. It is caused by diverse influencing factors and occurs upon overuse of the eyes. Over the past decade, significant changes have appeared in the etiology, clinical manifestation and treatment of asthenopia with great changes in the society and lifestyles. The Chinese Optometric Association of Chinese Ophthalmological Society and the Optometry Group of Chinese Ophthalmologist Association have organized nationwide experts in the field to thoroughly discuss the latest researches on asthenopia...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force with great potential in various fields, including healthcare. In recent years, AI has garnered significant attention due to its potential to revolutionise ophthalmology, leading to advancements in patient care such as disease detection, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of disease progression. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the research trends and collaborative networks at the intersection of AI and ophthalmology. In this study, we conducted an extensive search of the Web of Science Core Collection to identify articles related to 'artificial intelligence' in ophthalmology published from 1968 to 2023...

PURPOSE: To investigate gaze and behavioural metrics at different viewing distances with multifocal contact lenses (MFCLs), single vision contact lenses (SVCLs) and progressive addition lenses (PALs). METHODS: Fifteen presbyopic contact lens wearers participated over five separate study visits. At each visit, participants were randomly assigned to wear one of five refractive corrections: habitual PAL spectacles, delefilcon A (Alcon Inc.) MFCLs and three separate pairs of delefilcon A single vision lenses worn as distance, intermediate and near corrections...

Patients who suffer from sight-threatening eye diseases share a desire to regain a comfortable reading ability. In light of the modern advances achieved in ophthalmic diagnosis and therapy, and because a significant lack of comparability between reading charts still exists, there is an increasing need for a worldwide standard in the form of a norm for diagnostic reading charts. Already, applied advancements such as digital print, which allow a calibration of the print sizes of reading charts in correctly progressing geometric proportions by using the actual height of a lower case "x" in millimeters (x-height), and psychophysically standardizing reading charts and their test items by applying modern statistical methods have significantly contributed to establishing a norm for reading charts...

BACKGROUND: While it is treatable, uncorrected refractive error is the number one cause of visual impairment worldwide. This eye condition alone, or together with ocular misalignment, can also cause amblyopia, which is also treatable if detected early but still occurs in about 4% of the population. Mass vision screening is the first and most critical step to address these issues, but due to limited resources, vision screening in many rural areas remains a major challenge. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to pilot-test the feasibility of using smartphone apps to enhance vision screening in areas where access to eye care is limited...