Refractive screening made child’s play with new Plusoptix screener

There are a few instruments whose evolution I have followed over the years with great interest. I first came across the Plusoptix Vision Screener back at the start of the century. I had just undertaken a review of hand-held autorefractors and found that, while the models with a longer working distance gave more reliable results on young children, the models I had available were all monocular so suffered significant sphere error with young patients. The Plusoptix model then available (Figure 1) worked binocularly, used a metre working distance and incorporated some flashing coloured lights to help maintain attention. These features made it a significant improvement on other machines for paediatric work.