AAOpt 2023: Fitting tips for soft, GP, scleral, and hybrid contact lenses

At the 2023 American Academy of Optometry (AAOpt) meeting, Shalu Pal, BSc, OD, FAAO, discussed her ACE course, "Multifocal Fitting Tips for Soft, GP, Scleral and Hybrid Lenses," which she presented alongside Melissa Barnett, OD, FAAO, FSLS, FBCLA.

Video transcript

Editor's note: This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Shalu Pal, BSc, OD, FAAO:
Hi everyone, my name is Shalu Pal. I practice in Toronto, Canada, full scope optometry and I have a group practice there with five ODs. I love what I do. I love optometry, and I'm so thankful to be here.

Here at the Academy I am doing an ACE course on fitting multifocals and providing tips on all of the different platforms: soft, GPs, hybrids, and sclerals. I'm doing this course along with Dr. Melissa Barnett. And we have created a very fun type of experience. There are going to be icebreakers and prizes, and lots of questions, we really want this course to be very interactive.

Our plan is to go through each modality and really break it down, interact with the audience and go through any questions that they may have, and give our top tips for each of the different categories. I'll give you an example. For example, with soft multifocals, I'm a huge proponent of good communication. And so I talk about how do I explain presbyopia to my patients, and the importance of using fitting guides to be successful while fitting soft multifocal.

With GP lenses? Gosh, it's a lost art that we need to revive. And we talk about how do you differentiate between simultaneous lenses and translating lenses? And what are your best troubleshooting tips to make these lenses successful?

When it comes to hybrids, diving into the same category. What are your starting points when you run into trouble? What do you look for? Who are your ideal candidates for hybrids? And lastly, running it with scleral lenses. What's new with scleral lenses? You know, fitting multifocals is fun, both of us think fitting multifocals is a lot of fun. And when you think about scleral lenses, you think it may be quite daunting. But we want to go through how simple it can be. And what are the new technology that's available in terms of decentering optics and HOA [higher order aberration] optics and how important it is to use your team, being your lab partners, to get you the best results that you can.

With respect to multifocal I think the future lies in customization. With every modality that's available to us, we're able to do so much right now. But each year that passes, there's more and more that we're able to do from new extended ranges, new designs and curvatures. You know the concept of higher order aberrations and correcting for decentered optics. All of these are just going to just continue to elevate and make the multifocal fitting process even easier than it is right now.