Wise to the World

Write Your Way to Las Vegas

Vistakon invites students to write about "Organized optometry: Why is it important to you as a future practitioner and how can the profession get young O.D.s to take an active role?"

A faculty member from each school or college of optometry will select the two best entries. Winning students will receive a $500 travel grant. The student who submits the best essay at the national level will receive an additional prize of $1000.

Applications and guidelines are available from your school's AOSA trustee or from Carol Friehaut, AOSA executive director. You can contact Ms. Friehaut at (314) 991-4100, ext. 231 or at cmfrei@aol.com.

If you're interested in applying for a Vistakon travel grant, submit your essay to the faculty member listed on the application form by Apr. 3, 2006.

CL SAVVY
Bring Back the Basics
James W. Hartzell, O.D. Des Moines, Iowa

Contact lenses are becoming more sophisticated every day, but old fitting strategies, such as left vs. right lens comparisons are sometimes best.

Over the years, I've narrowed my lens parameter options to a few good choices, but I also could use the additional information side-by-side comparison would provide.

Now, when I'm fitting patients with contact lenses, I do a side-by-side comparison of different parameters, such as base curves and lens materials. This extra step gives me the opportunity to see how the lenses behave on the eye and listen to patients' initial subjective reactions.

After patients wear the lenses for a few days, I reevaluate their eyes and decide which parameters work best for them. Seeing lenses on the patients after a reasonable period of "real world" experience, I am comfortable with the parameters I choose and confident my patients will leave the office with maximal clear, comfortable and functional contact lenses.

MANY PATIENTS with glaucoma don't realize they're losing sight to this condition until their optometrist diagnoses them. Now, a new FDA-cleared, on-line test may help patients detect glaucoma-related visual loss just by looking at their own internet-capable computers.

Peristat is an automated digital perimetry test that presents light stimuli on a computer monitor. The program uses the patient's responses to create a high-fidelity contrast sensitivity map of the test-taker's peripheral vision. Doctors and perimetry specialists review the results of the 2- to 3-minute test and e-mail their findings to the test-taker within 24 hours. Based on the results, they may recommend the patient follow-up with an eyecare specialist for additional testing. The cost per test is $15.00.

So far, clinical studies show the Peristat test has a 90% screening accuracy. For more information or to take a free demo test, go to keepyoursight.com