eye exam Archives - Amazing Health Advances

LASIK: What You Need to Know

The AHA! Team — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 05:04:15 +0000

Kourtney H. Houser, MD via Duke Health – Chances are, you know someone who has had LASIK surgery, or you may have considered the procedure yourself. Despite the allure of ditching daily eyewear, the decision to undergo this elective surgery is one most people understandably deliberate on for quite a while. Here, Duke corneal specialist Kourtney Houser. MD, explains what you need to know if you are considering LASIK surgery. Is LASIK as quick, easy, and painless as it’s sometimes described? Make no mistake — LASIK is surgery, and anyone who implies otherwise is not forthcoming. The surgeon creates a flap in the cornea, and a laser is used to reshape the underlying cornea. The surgery takes less than ten minutes, and patients feel pressure but no pain. However, that does not mean it is a simple procedure that just anyone can perform. Like any surgery, the experience of the surgeon is the most important factor in achieving the best results. What factors are important when considering LASIK? In addition to the surgeon’s experience, several elements are crucial to success with LASIK surgery. It starts with a thorough preoperative exam by a qualified surgeon and staff to ensure you are a good candidate. The quality of the surgical tools, such as the laser used, is also very important. We believe that having dedicated, on-site laser machines in a controlled operating room environment, where temperature and humidity are constantly monitored, contributes to better outcomes in our patients. We also have two different excimer laser platforms so that we can customize the procedure to each patient’s eye measurements and ensure the best vision possible. What complications are possible, and how common are they? Any eye procedure has a risk of vision loss, infection, or scarring, but thankfully this is very rare with LASIK. We actually think that the infection risk is less than that with contact lens wear over a patient’s lifetime, based on some reviews. Other risks include needing a second procedure, worsened dry eye, and development of pain or discomfort in the eyes, but most of these can be avoided by appropriate and in-depth pre-operative screening. Our rate of complications is extremely low, with the majority of them occurring less than 1% of the time. Our rates of enhancement (the need for additional laser adjustments) are under 2%. Who is not a good candidate for LASIK? Good question. There are people who are not candidates for LASIK surgery. In fact, I generally turn down roughly 20% of the prospective patients who come in for an evaluation. Some of the more common reasons include high refractive errors (nearsightedness or farsightedness), dry eyes, thin or abnormally shaped corneas, cataracts, and retinal problems from diabetes. The good news is that if you do not qualify for LASIK, Duke offers an array of alternative surgical procedures, such as PRK, phakic intraocular lenses, and cataract surgery with presbyopia- or astigmatism-correcting intraocular lenses. How long do improvements last? Improvements typically last a lifetime, though there can be some slight regression with time depending on your prescription. Also, most patients will develop a need for reading glasses as they reach their 40s and 50s–and while this doesn’t signify the LASIK “not working” anymore, it does usually require patients to wear glasses for some near tasks. What’s the bottom line when considering LASIK? LASIK is not for everybody, but those who are good candidates can experience a life-changing experience–independence from glasses or contact lenses and the freedom to see without correction for many years. As with any surgery, people should do their homework beforehand and choose a surgeon and facility in which they have confidence. To read the original article click here.

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3D Printing Your Own Personalized Contact Lenses

The AHA! Team — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 08:26:35 +0000

John Jeffay via Israel21c – Lensy envisions that within a few years, the optometrist will check your vision, press a button and hand you a perfect pair of custom contact lenses. Instant 3D-printed contact lenses are the future. You’ll go for an eye exam, the optometrist will check your vision, press a button, and within minutes you’ll have a pair of contact lenses that are a perfect fit and provide perfect vision. Leonardo da Vinci came up with the theoretical idea of contact lenses in 1508. They didn’t become a practical reality until the 1930s. Yet even now they haven’t really taken off. Three billion people globally wear glasses, but only 150 million opt for contacts. The reason: Price and comfort. Contact lenses work out to be far more expensive than eyeglasses, especially now that 90 percent of users choose disposables. And many people find they simply can’t wear them – because their eyes are the wrong shape. Eyes are a bit like feet, Edan Kenig, CEO at Israeli startup Lensy, tells ISRAEL21c. They come in different shapes and sizes. Yet off-the-shelf contact lenses are “one-size-fits-all” aside from the optical part in the center. So they more or less fit 70% of the world’s population, but for the other 30%, it’s just tough. That’s because the big players in the optical market use the same molds to mass-manufacture millions of lenses. Some inevitably end up being too loose, some too tight, depending on tiny but significant differences in eye shape and size. Kenig says his technology will solve both the price and comfort problems, and his lenses could be available to buy four years from now. Resin 3D “I would really like to wear contact lens for the whole day,” says Kenig, who is extremely short-sighted (a minus-11 prescription). “But now I’m limited to use them only for sport [he does Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu] for a few hours because it’s not comfortable for me.” He’s a biophysicist by training and later became an engineer and an entrepreneur, learning how to develop ideas into products. He saw the potential of an emerging technology called resin 3D-printing, a more sophisticated form of standard 3D printing. It uses UV light to “cure” or harden a resin, rather than squirting material through a nozzle to build objects layer by layer. Kenig and his small team, based in Rehovot, central Israel, have adapted a form of contact lens material and developed a technique to resin 3D-print it. They’ve got as far as printing a contact lens — and say they’re the first to have done so — but still need to perfect it before they can try it out in a human eye. Custom solutions Lensy is an early-stage startup founded in early 2022 with help from the Israel Innovation Authority. The company currently has no external funding. Big companies are also researching and developing printed lenses, says Kenig, but they’re planning what he calls “large, cumbersome, expensive printers” rather than the desktop version he’s working on. For the 70% of people with “normal” eyes, mass-produced lenses will likely remain the best option, he says. For the other 30%, tailored lenses will be a gamechanger. “The further away you are away from the average fit, the more problems you’re going to have, such as people with a high astigmatism, people with high myopia and people with peculiar eye shapes that are not round and not spherical. “The optometrist will then have the opportunity to make a custom solution so the patient will have an affordable, comfortable fit that’s tailored to their needs.” The machine will be available on a lease basis, using capsules that will cost the optometrist $50 per eye. The lenses will be reusable, although it’s possible that the technology will evolve to produce disposables. Like shoes “Contact lenses aren’t a new solution, yet they have many disadvantages that haven’t been resolved by better materials or better designs,” Kenig says. Around a fifth of wearers give up on them every year, he says. So although new users are always starting, the market is effectively stagnant. That’s partly to do with the cost – around $4 a day, he says – but largely because of the one-size-fits-all restriction. “It’s like going into a shoe store,” says Kenig, “and all the shoes are size nine [42 in Europe]. So if you’re size nine, great. If you’re size eight, you will have some problems. But if you’re seven or 11, it’ll be impossible.” Kenig says getting contact lenses today is time-consuming, cumbersome and labor-intensive, and the patient has to be really committed. Even a minor miscalculation means the optician will have to have the lenses redone. “If you have problem with your off-the-shelf contact lens, the optician will tell you to take glasses instead. They don’t have the tools to tailor your lenses.” In the future, Kenig says Lensy could make contact lenses that incorporate existing technology for kids that actually slows the progress of myopia as their eyes grow. Kenig also says lenses could one day be impregnated with slow-release drugs to avoid the need for painful eye injections, and smart contact lenses could be embedded with sensors and cameras. For more information, click here. To read the original article click here.

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Detecting Brain Disease Using the Eye

AHA Publisher — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 08:00:41 +0000

Susha Cheriyedath, M.Sc. via News-Medical Net – The human eye shares several vascular and neural similarities to the brain, and hence, our eyes have been found to offer a direct window to brain pathology. The unique characteristics of our eyes allow them to be a relatively affordable biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other illnesses of the brain. Currently, the diagnosis of AD is only possible after patients start showing early cognitive loss. A formal diagnosis is made using cognitive or mental state examinations, but the diagnosis can only be confirmed after examining the brain post mortem. Well-established biomarkers for AD presently used include Aβ-42, T-tau, and p-tau found in the cerebrospinal fluid, and fluorodeoxyglucose and Pittsburg Compound B found in the brain. Although these biomarkers are crucial for AD monitoring, the widespread implementation of these biomarkers is still a challenge. Visual Biomarkers for AD Alzheimer’s patients usually report visual symptoms, and this encouraged scientists to look for potential ocular biomarkers for AD. Studies showed that certain visual symptoms could be an indication of dementia onset as well as the development of senile plaques in the visual regions in the brain. As more and more details about the sequence of events, as well as the neurodegenerative changes in AD, are discovered, structural retinal biomarkers were found to have the potential to help in the early diagnosis of AD. Commonly reported vascular issues in AD are a blood-brain-barrier compromise, impaired Aβ clearance, vasoconstriction, reduced blood vessel density, and blood flow. Direct visualization of the hallmarks of AD in the retina can be the most promising AD biomarker because of its specificity for AD. However, ongoing work is necessary to verify that Aβ plaques are present in retinal tissues and that these retinal deposits are predictive of cerebral deposits. In addition, VVAD, a visual variant of AD, has been found to affect relatively younger people. VVAD patients present with visual symptoms in their 50s or 60s and eventually follow the course of cognitive decline typically seen in patients with AD. Non-retinal biomarkers for AD include pupillary reactions such as pupil size and pupillary response to light. Eye movements also play a crucial role because AD patients have trouble with reading due to suboptimal eye movements said to be linked to memory. AD sufferers have been shown to present with higher latency during voluntary eye movements, and show decreased eye movement speed. They may also fail to fixate on or follow a moving target. Apart from being crucial and early indicators of brain illness, these visual changes are easy to examine since the eye is very accessible, and retinal imaging is a simple procedure, all of which make ocular biomarkers very attractive. Study at the Duke Eye Center A study conducted by researchers at the Duke Eye Center concluded that Alzheimer’s and other kinds of brain illnesses could soon be detected using just an eye exam. The study analyzed the retinas of more than 200 people to find any potential differences between those with and without Alzheimer’s disease. The results showed that people with a healthy brain have a dense network of blood vessels in their retina, which are visible during an eye exam. This microscopic web of blood vessels was way less pronounced in individuals with an unhealthy brain or Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers used a non-invasive technology, namely optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) to take high-resolution images of the tiny blood vessels in the retina. Since the retina can be considered as an extension of the brain, they concluded that the differences in the density of the retinal blood vessels could be indicative of the state of the cerebral blood vessels and hence help us in early detection of brain pathology. Future of Ocular AD Biomarkers Ocular biomarkers for AD, though still in their infancy, hold a lot of promise for the detection of Aβ-related retina changes, which are very specific for AD pathophysiology. The discovery of these ocular markers is said to have the potential to advance our understanding of AD considerably. The development of ocular biomarkers is expected to open new doors to the discovery of novel diagnosis and treatment methods that can improve the quality of life of patients with brain disease. Future research needs to focus on potential avenues for further advancements in this area. Sources Yoon S. P. et al. Retinal Microvascular and Neurodegenerative Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment Compared with Control Participants. Ophthalmol. Retina. 2019;3(6):489–499. DOI: 10.1016/j.oret.2019.02.002 Lim Jeremiah K.H., et al. The Eye As a Biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease. Front Neurosci. 2016;10:536. DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2016.00536 To read the original article click here.

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