Seeing without believing
How often do you ask your visually impaired patients the following question: “Do you ever see things you know aren’t real?”
This is an important question that is often overlooked. Patients rarely volunteer information about hallucinating for fear...
The chief complaint requiring a magnifier
Reading is the number one complaint of our low vision patients. Thankfully many forms of magnification can help in most cases in the form of traditional magnifiers. While this might not be the magic...
The stellar event of the year
You have most likely heard by now that all of the United States will have a solar eclipse on August 21st. The moon will cover part of the sun for 2 to 3 hours!...
One woman's journey
I wanted to present an excellent book, which should be mandatory reading for all optometrists, not just those of us who practice low vision.
Not Fade Away is a memoir/autobiography of a woman who started losing her...
Smartphone apps are a game changer for patients
Smartphone accessibility options, now a standard, have also been a real game changer for people who are blind or visually impaired. One of the first questions I ask a low vision patient...
Many of us practice low vision within a private practice. Like anything else, low vision has its challenges and opportunities. Here are some helpful tips:
Consider a separate low vision phone number and website.
This sets the low vision 'practice within a...
Wearable Electronic Visual Enhancement Systems (w-EVES)
Recently a post on OD’s on Facebook asked about a wearable electronic visual enhancement system (w-EVES) from Canada called e-sight.
The device is a wearable pair of glasses with a video camera that displays...
Virtual reality headsets are a hot topic.
Augmented reality is a type of virtual reality technology that blends what the user sees in their real surroundings with digital content generated by computer software. Using augmented reality, we can “visit” countries around the world or drive...
One of the first rules we learned!
One of the first things we learned in optometry school was the importance of taking a thorough history. This is not only important from a medico-legal standpoint, but more relevant is that a good...
Discovery of myopia retinal cell
Scientists at Northwestern have discovered a ganglion cell in the mouse retina that can function abnormally if not introduced to the proper amount and time of natural light. The retinal cell, called “ON delayed,” due...