If You are Chronologically Enhanced Go Party!!

Higher levels of social activity decrease the risk of developing disability in old age

CHICAGO—Afraid of becoming disabled in old age, not being able to dress yourself or walk up and down the stairs? Staying physically active before symptoms set in could help. ....According to research conducted at Rush University Medical Center, higher levels of social activity are associated with a decreased risk of becoming disabled. ...

Hand Movements In Children With ADHD Hold Clues To Understanding And Predicting Symptom Severity

Prevalence, grade of conjunctivochalasis linked to type, degree of refractive error

....Refractive error, particularly hyperopia, may be associated with grade and severity of conjunctivochalasis...

CAM in pediatrics: Use and potential dangers

....Use of CAM therapy among children and adolescents is not uncommon. Estimates of CAM use in the pediatric population vary from 2% to at least 50%. Studies of CAM use by children seen in ambulatory clinics have found usage rates of up to 40%. Children with recurrent conditions appear to use CAM more frequently, including children with autism, asthma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other chronic disorders....It is also important to note that several studies have documented that most caregivers do not disclose use of CAM for their children.....medical adverse events in children ... for 3 years (2001-2003). During this time, 46 reports of adverse events associated with CAM were made, with 39 cases further evaluated. Four fatalities were reported, which resulted from caregivers’ failure to use conventional medicine. One of the reported deaths was that of a 10-month infant whom succumbed from sepsis potentially related to use of homeopathic medicines and dietary restriction for chronic eczema.....

HHS unveils new national vaccine plan

...The main goals of the plan, which was discussed today at the National Vaccine Advisory Committee Meeting, are to establish priority areas for new vaccines and vaccine enhancement, develop evidence-based surveillance strategies for assessing safety as well as efficacy of vaccines, create awareness of vaccine-preventable diseases, and to enhance coordination of all aspects of federal vaccine and immunization activities....

Doctor of Optometry, Tom Little, O.D. awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

From the American Optometric Association

Today at 1:30 p.m. EST, President Obama will award the nation's highest civilian honor to a Doctor of Optometry. Tom Little, O.D. will be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Dr. Little was murdered by the Taliban after returning from a humanitarian mission to provide vision care in the remote Parun ...valley of Nuristan. Make sure to watch the ceremony live at: WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Bottle rockets cause permanent vision loss

....The retrospective review, conducted by Ms Mehnaz Khan et al., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, revealed several ocular injuries including corneal epithelial defect, hyphaema, traumatic iris, iridodialysis, cataract, retinal dialysis and vitreous haemorrhage.....

Handwriting Problems Affect Children With Autism Into the Teenage Years

...A new study suggests that the handwriting problems that affect children with autism are likely to continue into their teenage years. The research is published in the November 16, 2010, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology....


Click on the title above to read more about it.The abstract of this article is available by clicking here. DM

Kids With ADHD Much More Likely to Develop Substance Abuse Problems

...Children with are two to three times more likely than children without the disorder to develop serious substance abuse problems in adolescence and adulthood, according to a study by UCLA psychologists and colleagues at the University of South Carolina....

Mom says, optometric vision therapy made a big difference in her child's life

...A mom wrote on her blog...

About a year ago I posted here, very upset, about my under achieving daughter in 2nd grade who had recently been identified as gifted but was getting terrible grades, had issues with reading and writing, with school psychologist suggesting she had ADD.
 
A couple of people suggested getting her evaluated by a developmental optometrist, ....I'm posting to share our great experience with vision therapy, because it has changed my daughter's life so much. .... it's really some of the best money I've ever spent.....

Read more by clicking on the title above. DM

Bill Gates: Vaccine-autism link 'an absolute lie'

.....Gates: Well, Dr. Wakefield has been shown to have used absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits, he created a fake paper, the journal allowed it to run. All the other studies were done, showed no connection whatsoever again and again and again. So it's an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn't have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts -- you know, they, they kill children. It's a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.....

Should Optometry Exist?

A friend of mine who frequents a social/professional group called ODWire.org, told me that a recent topic of conversation centered around the question, Should Optometry exist? My response is below:

...As to your question..... Since we already exist as a profession....in many ways this question is irrelevant.

What does matter is not should we exist...but rather how should we exist.

I believe that in the relatively near future refractive care.. ...glasses/contact lenses...will become less and less important in terms of income for the OD. Glasses are going the way of contact lenses where online ordering will be the norm....and a bit further down the road....patients will do "self-refractions" as well.

At the AAO meeting this past fall on one side of the poster I was presenting was the fella who invented the refractor that hooks into your cell phone and then sends the refraction to a 3rd party. At the Consumer Electronic Show (see below)...there was a pair of glasses that changed power by hitting a button on the temple...... ....increasing the + power as needed for the individual.

So if refractive care is to be less important to us... I see ODs developing more and more into what medicine, especially surgeons do not do well....primary medical eye care and non-specialty areas. There will always be a place for the primary care doc and the specialist.

I see residencies becoming mandatory for all optometry graduates .... which will increase the time needed to actually go into practice. I see this mad rush to build more optometry schools to slow significantly...and several optometry schools will close (think about dentistry) and then after a few years stabilize and eventually new schools open again (think dentistry V 2.0).

We will have residency trained Peds/BV/Vision Rehab docs who will take a certification examination after completing a residency program much like the way medicine currently does it...

So if I was just starting optometry school today....I would definitely participate in a residency upon graduation, obtain as much specialty training as possible, plan on taking some kind of certification examination and be ready to practice in a very different manner from the way you were taught.

When I look at how we were taught, what we were taught and what the expectations were upon graduation from optometry school....(this was back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth), most of us probably had no idea that we would be doing all the things we are currently doing on the medical end....even better....although we hoped the research would show what we believed to be true (Optometric Vision Therapy works)...was true...we didn't have the clinical trials to back us up....we certainly have the research now...and even medicine (and the insurance companies) have started to notice this as well.

We will become more and more service oriented and less and less product oriented. America's Best, Costco and much of corporate optometry will either disappear or also have to change significantly.

Refractive 3rd party plans will decrease significantly or develop into an "online glasses/contact lenses" patient self refracted ordering business...as refractive surgical intervention continues to improve both contacts and glasses will eventually go the way of the dodo bird.....optometrists will be doing this surgery....and except for those of us who use lenses as therapy....most docs won't bother to refract anymore...they will depend upon auto-refraction almost exclusively.

Learning related vision problems, binocular vision problems, and vision rehabilitation all will be done by ODs with special training....and if we do not do this these activities it will be absorbed by OTs, PTs and other "rehabilitation" specialists.

Anytime you try to figure out the future....you are probably wrong. Remember the book Mega Trends?

Anyway...I think optometry will be with us for some time to come....changed significantly...but still performing a valuable service for our patients.....if we are vigilant...if we support groups like the AOA and COVD to protect our interests....and if we are willing to change...that is....

My friend and colleague, Dr. Len Press just published a great deal of info on those "digital glasses" I mentioned earlier....and also on my posts about when I spoke at the Consumer Electronic Show...

The video below tells some of the story....for more go to Dr. Press' blog by clicking here... see video below too... BTW...don't go out and buy those new digital glasses just yet...I hear that they will run about $1200!