Cataract

Our patients have numerous choices regarding advanced technology and eye care. Advances range from how patients check in for an appointment to what tools a surgeon uses to dissect tissue. They all have their benefits, and all come at a cost.

We often perform cataract surgery with near vision correction, using monovision or presbyopia-correcting intraocular lenses (IOLs). These folks are typically happy despite having mild residual refractive error. Something magically happens between that patient getting glasses that she “just cannot wear, at all” and getting cataract surgery. Let’s follow that patient’s path.

We ODs have an inherent advantage our patients do not-we know what’s coming.

Myopia control and prevention has become a popular topic due to more data on myopia becoming available.

Mom has pseudoexfoliation syndrome (PXF) clinically visible in both eyes. She experiences pops of elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) in one eye and uses glaucoma medications.

As primary-care optometrists, we are the gatekeepers for baby boomers inquiring about cataract surgery. Today’s patients have treatment options available not only to address their lifestyle complaints but to provide them with better vision and possibly reduced dependence on glasses or contact lenses.

My interest in refractive surgery started in 1976 when my good friend and fellow University of Southern California (USC) ophthalmology resident Rick Villaseñor returned from his course in keratomileusis surgery with Jose Barraquer in Bogota, Columbia.

T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the towns, not an optometrist was stirring-not even an online retailer promising glasses at low cost.

The ocular surface encompasses not only the cornea, but the all-important supporting conjunctiva that is divided into the bulbar, limbal, palpebral, forneaceal, and marginal zones.

Advances in femtosecond laser assisted cataract surgery (FLACS) providing better results, fewer complications, and higher rates of patient satisfaction.

I am again reminding you that optometry has a renewed purpose in the management of our cataract and refractive patients.

As your patients celebrate another birthday milestone, they are again back in your chair wondering why their reading glasses mysteriously disappear when they are out exploring life or why their arms are not as long as they used to be.

Eyecare practitioners who deal with patients in the perioperative period are well aware of the need for topical therapy. In most cases, a combination of a steroid, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), and an antibiotic will be used for a few days before the day of surgery and then for a period afterward.

A referral of your patient to a cataract surgeon seems straightforward. You refer when the vision is subjectively affected by lens opacification. But thinking out of the box will enable you to help your patients in ways you may not consider.