Conversations in practice: Sport and contact lenses

As eye care professionals, we all know that using contact lenses instead of spectacles to play sport is a good combination. Yet often patients are unaware of the benefits contact lens wear could have for them while playing sport. In fact many spectacle-only wearers simply manage without their vision correction while taking part in sport; just over half (52 per cent) say they leave their glasses off compared with only one in 10 contact lens users who don’t wear their contact lenses for sport.1

Awareness that sports play an important role in living our lives in a healthy way is very high. Today, about four in 10 Europeans (41 per cent) exercise or participate in sport at least once a week.2 This creates a huge opportunity not only for our practices but also to incorporate lifestyle discussion in all interactions with our patients, including the benefits of a healthy diet and avoiding smoking, as well as regular exercise.3