Eye-health: Recent advances in technology can mean healthier eyes for longer

Advances in research and technology can improve certain eye conditions that previously were virtually untreatable.

Many people think that a visit to an optician (or optometrist) is just about checking to see if you need new spectacles or not, but a good optometrist can provide so much more to help keep your eyesight in tip-top condition.

Utilising the latest research and the latest that technology has to offer, your optometrist can

Myopia

For those of us who are not familiar with the term Myopia, it’s simply a more technical term for ‘short-sightedness’. Recently, advances in the ability to manage the progression of Myopia (short sightedness) in children has enabled eye-care professionals to slow myopic progression and therefore reduce the risk of sight threatening complications of high Myopia, such as retinal detachments or Myopic Macula degeneration.

The progression of short-sightedness occurs as the length of the eye increases in response to increased close work tasks or being indoors. Using a harmless scanning technology, your clinician is able to measure the length of the eyes, and therefore positively identify those children at risk of developing high myopia.

Then, using specialist spectacles or contact lenses, the rate of elongation of the eye and hence the myopia, can be slowed, and therefore the risk of sight threatening complications in later life can be significantly reduced.

really make a difference to conditions that previously people would have just had to ‘put up with’.

Two specific areas of eye-care in particular that have seen recent rapid advances in the understanding of the mechanisms involved and therefore more treatment options are available than ever before. These areas are Myopia management and Dry Eye.

Dry Eye

The second area of recent technological advances is in the treatment and management of Dry Eye. This very common and often overlooked condition can cause intermittent discomfort, grittiness, watering, focusing difficulty and tired or achey feeling eyes.

Forward-thinking eye-care professionals will now have a number of in-house treatments available that can help those struggling with the management of Dry Eye and the associated conditions such as Sjogrens Syndrome, Ocular Rosacea, Blepharitis and Meibomian Gland Dysfunction.

Using the latest technology, such as Tear-Lab osmolarity or InflammaDry testing, Infra Red Meibography, anterior OCT scanning and diagnostic dyes to ascertain the root cause of the symptoms, eye-care professionals are able then to create an individual management plan, specifically for your needs. Treatment options include Punctal Plugs, Lacrimal syringing, Blephex Blepharitis lid cleansing but most recently ground-breaking technology such as IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) laser and LLLT (Low Level Light Therapy).

IPL therapy uses specific wavelength laser light to improve the production of ‘good’ tear quality and repair distorted and nonfunctional eyelid glands. Combined with the LLLT mask, which gently warms the blocked tear producing glands, there is a vast improvement to the quality of the natural tears that a patient produces.

This provides a more effective alternative to using lid cleaning products or warm compresses, which can be a little inconvenient to do at home and are quite often neglected because of our increasingly busy lives. The treatment usually involves an initial 4-5 sessions, around a week apart, and then a top up treatment every six months or so, to maintain the health of the restored tear producing glands.

Some patients find that they can completely do without warm compresses and even reduce the frequency of any lubricating drops that they may have been using.

Traditionally, treating Dry Eye or Blepharitis has been an uphill and ongoing struggle, whereas this new technology reduces the daily burden for sufferers and dramatically improves quality of life.

To summarise, technological advances continue to evolve for the benefit of all of us, and there has never been a better time to visit an optometrist.

A good optician should be able to provide many of the treatments above to help keep your eyes healthy.