Designer of a Field's Test for Drivers with Glaucoma Wins Award

Glaucoma damages the visual field, and if the loss is severe, an individual can loss driving privileges. At present, no objective, office-based tests accurately estimates the impact of visual field loss on driving. So, Dr. Hannes Devos at Georgia Regents University has worked on a project entitled "Performance-Based Visual Field Testing to Detect Driving Impairments in Individuals with Glaucoma." For his efforts, Fight forSight and Prevent Blindness named as the recipient of the new “Fight for Sight-Prevent Blindness Public Health Award,” which comes with a one-time $20,000 grant for a year of full-time research.

According to the 2014 “The Future of Vision: Forecasting the Prevalence and Costs of Vision Problems” report from Prevent Blindness, more than 2.8 million Americans ages 40 and older have glaucoma, with glaucoma and disorders of the optic nerve costing $6.1 billion annually.  Read more.

Role of ECP and Elderly Drivers

"Most eye doctors consider it their responsibility to ask older patients about driving problems, but this hit-or-miss approach may not be nearly enough to clear the roads of unsafe elderly drivers, new research suggests,” reports Midwest Lens. “By 2020, as the U.S. population ages, the number of drivers over age 65 will reach 40 million, according to the study. Many will have failing vision, reduced mobility and perhaps cloudy thinking, thus posing a serious public health issue, the researchers said. For two new studies, researchers surveyed more than 400 ophthalmologists and optometrists in Michigan with patients older than 65. The researchers asked the doctors for their views on whether to ask patients about driving, how to decide if a patient’s vision is inadequate and whether they referred patients to primary care physicians.” Read more