The Matheson Optometrists - Theratears  Conference - <big><big>  

Ocular surface Disease and the Contact Lens Wearer

This was the first conference provided by Matheson Optometrists and Advance Vision Research, the manufacturers of the Theratears range of products. It coincided with the official UK launch of the product Distributed by Matheson Optometrists. It had 92 attendees from several countries.

The aim was to give those in the profession with an interest in contact lenses and ocular therapeutics a first class event at a grossly subsidised cost. Although most of the cost was borne by the Matheson Optometrists Group and AVR, significant help with speaker and delagate notes costs came from Ciba Vision, No7, ARC Imaging Systems and Vitabiotics.

Because the Institute of Optometry kindly donated its lecture hall for the conference and many of the speakers being either fellows of the American Academy or members of the BCLA agreed to waive their presentation fee, this meant that like minded optometrists were able to attend for only a £10.00 contribution towards the food costs. Just over 90 delegates attended the meeting.

The conference (ref  C4943) was awarded 8.5 College CET points, including 5 contact lens points.

 David Austen started the day with the presentation “Dry Eyes, Wet Eyes”, which gave a very informative review of causes and treatment of dry eye and epiphoria, including an intriguing  PowerPoint video presentation of a punctal plug being fitted.

Next the American guest speaker, Jeff Gilbard gave a 90 min presentation on modern treatments for, and research on dry eye. He gave a very informative and entertaining talk that commanded everyones attention.

Nick Atkins followed this with “OK in the UK?” , a review of where Ortho-K is today in Britain, comparing its development here with America, Australia etc.

The last talk of the morning was by Andrew Matheson on the fitting of Chromagen contact lenses to treat colour blindness and the use of the soon to be released ARC optical D15 Analysis program to graphically quantify the level of success of the treatment in a given case.

After a buffet lunch, Pat Falvey, then showed how our fixation with digital resolution levels in our image acquisition software can be misplaced. He showed everyone how spectral resolution and sensitivity are often lost in the quest for more and more pixels. We were shown lower resolution pictures with far more visible detail than their high resolution counterparts. He also touched on the issues of file storage problems with these high digital resolution pictures, meaning that they were often significantly compressed in an effort to save disk space, further loosing detail.

Pat was followed by Ron Loveridge who presented “Beyond disposables – the place for specialist lenses”, which informatively reminded us not to lose sight of the best contact lens correction simply because there was an easier one available. Patients receiving such extra specialist attention tend to be the most loyal and help build up a contact lens practice by word of mouth recommendation.

Vicky Evans followed this with an excellent presentation on “the therapeutic applications of Silicone Hydrogel contact lenses” showing how these lenses were in many case the bandage lens of choice for pain relief, promoting healing, preventing dessication and improving vision in the case of irregular epithelial changes.

John Tiffany then gave an enlightening presentation on current research models of the tear film which showed how much of our accepted understanding of tear chemistry is based on out of date assumptions. It is a field where by the time research gets into hardback print it has already been superceded by a more up-to-date view.

Michel Guillon then showed the effects of contact lens wear on evaporative dry eye very lucidly.

Simon Barnard wound the day up with a talk on PVD and retinal detachments, which provided a slight digression from the main theme of the day that kept every ones attention till the close of play.

Because of various worries about terrorism affecting London that week, Sudi Patel’s lecture was rescheduled for later in the day as his flight was affected by delays. Luckily he made it just in time to talk about nuitrition and dry eye at the end of the day.

Due to popular demand, Jeff Gilbard received an “encore” and in true form was able to deliver a further lecture this time on the role of nuitrition and ocular surface disease. He showed how the omega-3 essential fatty acids were so important both for meibomian secretions and also in control of the inflammatory cascade in ocular surface disease.

The course finally ended at about 7.00 pm for those able to stay.

Following the course a satisfaction questionaire was sent out which indicated that the day had been a resounding success in terms of quality and relevance of the presentations, with the only criticism being insufficient time for questions due to the intensive nature of the day, having so many good speakers with so many interesting things to say.

Jeff Gilbard is to write an article in OT shortly on an update to ocular surface disease treatment which will include much from his presentations. Also he is to be guest speaker at the Ciba Specialist Contact Lens Club conference in October. Also He and Andrew Matheson will be running dry eye treatment workshops at that venue. I should book your seats early if the attendence at this conference is anything to go by.

The Matheson Optometrists - Theratears 1-day Conference

Ocular surface Disease and the Contact Lens Wearer(8.5 CET points, 5 CL points)Timetable (revised 19/03/04)