Back to basics

It should come as a surprise to no-one that the public at large is ignorant of some basic optical facts.

News this week that presbyopia is hampering the lives of thousands of people across Europe should act as a warning to the profession that it fails to educate the population at its own peril.

There appears to be no limit to the inconvenience people are prepared to put up with when it comes to their sight.

There is little the profession can do about the 10 per cent of people who do not visit the optician, but once in the chair the other 90 per cent should be fair game for being educated.

This doesn't mean promotion of the latest optical toys but some good old fashioned basics.

Increasingly there is only one place eye care messages are emanating from and that is the industry and the profession itself.

And when it comes to research, you have to take your hat off to the contact lens fraternity.

It is a sad irony that yet again a piece of research is being funded and commissioned by a contact lens company, the sector of the business that reaps the least rewards from presbyopes.

The orthokeratology providers have taken a leaf out of laser eye surgery's book and sought to harness the power of the media with some notable successes.

Can it be right that the public's knowledge of a tiny surgical niche procedure outstrips the understanding of a physiological change that affects us all? No.

It is just that Lasik is talked about and presbyopia isn't — plain and simple.