Wise to the World
Submit Your Best Case to Win an Award
By Judith Riddle
Senior Editor
Essilor of America Inc. is searching for outstanding optometry students across the country to submit applications for its 21st annual Varilux Student Grant Awards. The 2008–2009 grants will be awarded to third- and fourth-year optometry students.
Applicants must submit case reports up to 2,000 words about patients who were fit with Varilux progressive lenses to their school's clinical staff. The faculty and staff will select one recipient based on dispensing skills, application of Varilux lenses to fit the patient's needs, analysis of the case and analysis of the lens design and performance.
The student with the winning case report at each school will receive a $1,000 grant and entry into the national judging round. The national award winner and faculty advisor each will receive an all-expense paid trip for two to the joint meeting of the American Optometric Association and the American Optometric Student Association, to be held June 24-28, 2009, in Washington, DC.
For more information on how and where to submit your winning case report, visit essilorusa.com and click on the services link on the tool bar. Or, you can contact Danne Ventura at (650) 366-6996 or dventura@essilorusa.com.
| CL SAVVY |
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| Fitting Complicated CL Cases Until recently, I've been successful using a piggyback lens design when fitting challenging patients who have globular keratoconus or pellucid marginal degeneration. You can't avoid corneal binding or adherence very often with just a rigid lens in these patients. However, for the past year or so, I've found that the PureVision (Bausch & Lomb) toric contact lens offers great comfort, vision and physiology for patients with these conditions. I've been able to move some of my patients out of a piggyback modality to the PureVision toric. The high modulus of the material, along with the lower water content, seem to offer enough rigidity to provide significantly better than average vision for these patients. Needless to say, with the high oxygen permeability of this material, the corneal physiology also is exemplary. It would be great to get this material in a custom lens. Patricia M. Keech, OD, FAAO |
Soft CLs: Safe for Myopic Kids
It's true! Soft contact lens wear doesn't result in accelerated development of myopia in children and doesn't cause increases in axial length or corneal curvature, according to a new study in the November 2008 issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.
Findings from this multicenter 3-year study, the largest randomized clinical trial of its kind, further dispel the myth that soft contact lenses increase myopia progression (a.k.a. myopic creep) in children more than other vision correction options.
This news should give you greater confidence in offering contact lenses as an option for children who have myopia.
Tear-Jerker Books For Dry Eyes
Here's good news for dry eye patients who love to read. Best-selling author Jacquelyn Mitchard has teamed up with Allergan Inc. and the Red Hot Mamas, the largest menopause management education organization, to unveil the Top 10 Tear-Jerker Book List and launch the Dry Eye Book Club, a national health education campaign that's raising awareness about dry eye among women.
The book list includes stories that bring tears to the eyes. Patients can join the book club at dryeyebookclub.com. There, they'll learn about dry eye treatments and be able to read along with Mitchard and others while keeping their eyes moist.
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