Eye and mind - psychological aspects of vision care

Dr Doina Gherghel gives a preview of a forthcoming course 'Eye and mind: psychological aspects of vision care' to be held at Aston University

In their day-to-day professional activity, optometrists come in contact with a large variety of eye disorders. However, in many of our patients ocular diseases are associated with various degrees of disability due to visual loss in addition, other patients visiting optometric practices may suffer from various psychological changes that could have a great impact on the normal ophthalmic diagnosis, treatment, and referral.

Although optometrists are in no way qualified to undertake specialist psychological evaluation of a patient, they should, however, be aware of the key signs and symptoms of the most common psychological problems associated with vision loss and be able to refer the patient when necessary.