Touching the surface

Before starting my recent sessions at a low vision clinic, I had got into the habit of asking all patients about dry eye symptoms and, confirming what is widely known and published, found a majority suffered some form of symptomatic dry eye at some time. Most of these were easily helped by good advice, management of their environment or with the recommendation of lid therapy or tear and dietary supplementation.

Upon seeing people attending low vision clinic, many with severe sight loss or severe cognitive or learning difficulties, it became very obvious that, firstly, a majority of these patients had similar problems and, secondly, that many had never been asked about them before. Worryingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, knowing the ‘didn’t want to bother you’ attitude of many of our older patients, many were sitting at home and suffering symptoms of burning and gritty eyes which could easily have been addressed.