Say `no’ to non-professional advice on eye-care

You must ignore people who say wonderful things about `easy' eye-care...by-passing the yearly professional eye examination, as a disease like glaucoma (the sneak thief of vision) can sometimes rob a person of precious vision if not treated in time.

Dr. Narendra Kumar
Editor, Optometry Today
OptometryToday@gmail.com 

A GP lens on top of a soft contact lens

Contact lenses are an excellent invisible aid to vision. Eye care practitioners usually fit either a soft or a

gas-permeable (GP) contact lens for the management of an error of refraction (myopia, hypermetropia, astigmatism, or presbyopia). But, in some ocular conditions like keratoconus (conical cornea), wherein spectacles and routine contact lenses do not provide the needed help in improving vision, eye doctors may, sometimes, resort to the fitting of a piggy-back system, whereby a GP lens rests on top of a soft contact lens, resulting in comfortable improvement in vision. (The picture from Times of India dated July 23, 2014 shows a koala cub riding on its mother’s back at a zoo in France).

Dr. Narendra Kumar

Respite from non-regulated practice of optometry

Heatwave grips Delhi; the thirsty bird looks for water as respite…Optometry comes to the country way back in 1958; still looking towards Government for respite, from non-regulated practice, in the form of Optometric Council of India! Picture source: Times of India, June 5, 2014.

Dr. Narendra Kumar
Editor, Optometry Today
OptometryToday@gmail.com

Preserve water…safeguard optometry

While water-demand increases with every passing day, its availability is becoming scarce…so much so that in near future battles are likely be fought over this issue if immediate steps are not put in place for its proper conservation. Urgent action on water management needs to be taken on many fronts…”we need to worship water like our ancestors did and manage it properly if we wish to have a future”, asserts Brahma Chellany, author of `Water, Peace and War: Confronting the Global Water Crises’. Picture (Hindustan Times, May 3, 2014, Mahendra Parikh) shows women drawing water from the only well at Gorai village, Borivli, Mumbai.

Scant regard is also being paid to optometry by Government authorities who introduced this noble profession of primary eye care in the country more than half a century ago (in the year 1958) but have not cared to bring out legislation to regulate its practice only in the hands of those who are qualified. And, in the interest of people’s efficient visual welfare, there’s urgent need to safeguard optometry by transforming it as the true first line of defence against blindness by establishing the Optometric Council of India.

Dr. Narendra Kumar