Viewpoint: Visions of the future

I recently gave a talk to a community group where I outlined just how much had changed in the world of optometry since I first qualified. When I was at university, the new piece of equipment that was exciting people was a device that puffed air at the eye and could therefore measure the pressure inside.  

This was seen as a big breakthrough because, up until then, opticians rarely routinely measured eye pressure. Visual fields were conducted using a bit of black cloth hung on the wall and viewing the retina was done with a direct ophthalmoscope or ‘guessing tube’, as I have heard it called many times.