View from the High Street: Clearly communicating

A recent discussion with a patient during her sight test reminded me of the complexities of the language we use in our work as optical professionals on a day to day basis, which we may consider to be ‘routine’. This patient attended for her sight test with me two years after her previous examination at another optician. It was another busy day in practice, and nothing was out of the ordinary with the results of her eye examination, and she was in good physical and mental health.

She already wears varifocals to correct her astigmatism and presbyopia, and had done so successfully for many years previously. She was fairly well educated regarding the benefits of having regular eye examinations due to her work, which was office-based, and also due to the fact her mother had recently been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration. She wanted to replace her now tired existing varifocals and update the lenses in her varifocal sunglasses.