Optician's Great Promo

"Police in Chippenham have teamed up with opticians to ensure schoolchildren can be clearly seen while walking to and from school." See how on the GazetteandHerald post.

January Is National Glaucoma Month--Tell Your Customers/Patients

More than four million people in the United States have glaucoma, a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve and destroy eyesight, according to the National Eye Institute. Unfortunately, nearly half of those with glaucoma are not even aware that they have it. 

You owe it to customers/patients to encourage them to get a comprehensive dilated eye exam. Paul A. Sieving, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Eye Institute (NEI), one of the National Institutes of Health, said, "NEI-funded research has shown that treatment during the early stages of glaucoma can control the disease and prevent future vision loss and blindness. This is why NEI encourages people at higher risk for glaucoma to get a comprehensive dilated eye exam every one to two years."

Anyone can develop glaucoma, but those at higher risk for developing the disease include:

• African Americans over age 40
• Everyone over age 60, especially Mexican Americans
• People with a family history of the disease

NEI Needs Your Ideas

The National Eye Institute (NEI) invites you to provide your input to the Institute's upcoming plan, Vision Research in 2011: Needs, Gaps, and Opportunities. This Request for Information (RFI) solicits opinions from those members of the scientific, medical, and patient communities with an interest to help shape the research agenda of the NEI.

Please visit http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-EY-11-001.html for more information and to submit your suggestions. Responses to this RFI must be submitted by February 1, 2011.

Fighting Mac D

"Jim Vlock is on a mission. Afflicted 15 years ago with macular degeneration, a retinal disorder that erodes central vision and thus the ability to drive, read, watch television and recognize faces, Vlock is determined to spread the word about the many devices that can help people like him live more fulfilling, independent and productive lives." So starts the BrattleboroReformer posting. "Vlock, now 84 and a longtime resident of Woodbridge, Conn., told me in an interview that he sought help at three of the country's best medical centers: Yale, the Cleveland Clinic and Columbia. And though they tried to treat his vision problem, none told him there were ways to improve his life within the limits of his visual loss."

ECPs "Rescue" Robbery Victim

"Out of the bad, comes the good. 'We're going to pick out some frames for you,' Sheila Brooks at Brooks Optical.  'How about something like this?...'
Mario Simms was heading to the store on Monday afternoon.   When he got to Dinwiddie Avenue, he was held up by two men who not only took his wallet, but his prescription glasses too." Read to find out why WTVR good came from it.

Jamaica Hub for Cuban Eye Program

"Jamaica is to serve as the Caribbean hub for the Cuban eye care programme, which has reached out to thousands of people in the region, Cuba's minister of foreign affairs has said," according to a post on JamaicaObserver. "The main eye operating centre located at St Joseph's Hospital in the eastern section of Kingston has already served over 1,000 patients since it was established here earlier this year with Cuban technology and personnel."

This is the same eye program that the United States attempted to discredit, according to information found in the WikiLeaks. Click here and here for more information.

Optical Checklist for Skiiers

Here's an optical checklist for your skiing customers.

• Wear goggles that can prevent snow and ice from obscuring vision during a descent, and they also can protect a skiier’s eyes from twigs or debris. 
• Remember sunglasses. They block UV rays, and there's plenty of UV on the slopes. Think snow-blindness. Snow reflects the UV rays.
• Fog-proof your googles, sunglasses, and eyeglasses. Use an antifog spray or antifog towelette, like Defog It. If goggles lost their fog-blocking ability, an application of an antifog may fix it.
• If you wear eyeglasses, you might want to defog them as well when going from cold of the slopes to the warmth of the lodge.

Avoid Truckers after Snow/Ice Storms

"Peter Morano sleeps with one eye open..." starts the story from the Chicago Sun-Times. "'Unfortunately, I can’t see out of that eye,' Morano said with a laugh...Morano, 41, of Aurora, was hit by a huge chuck of ice that flew off a passing truck...His nose, skull and orbital bone around his eye were fractured in the Jan. 4 accident in Warrenville. The ice sliced his left eyelid in half and exposed the bones of his nose...Morano will have to see a glaucoma specialist for the rest of his life."

PEG CLs Will Not Challenge SiHy's Any Time Soon

That's the opinion of one analyst, Mark Tapsak of the GLGroup. "Besides incremental improvements in SiHy contact lens materials, there have been few alternative materials that come close to the balance of oxygen permeability and water content. However, a polyethylene glycol composition developed by Ocutec, will attempt to challenge this market. I like to use patents and patent applications as a gauge whether a company such as Ocutec will be successful. My opinion is that Ocutec is not poised to make a significant challenge to the current SiHy materials."

Floorball Athletes Risk Eye Injury

Floorball athletes risk serious eye injury, according to a study published in the most unlikely of places,  Dental Traumatology. "A total of 608 individuals (565 athletes and 43 coaches) belonging to the amateur and semi-professional leagues in the two countries were individually interviewed. Although 72.7% of all athletes had observed and 27.7% of field players had sustained an injury to the eye or its vicinity, only 25 athletes (4.9%) wore protective eyewear." Floorball is an indoor form of hockey.

Soldiers Offered Surgery to Improve Aim

"Singapore will extend its offer of vision-correcting surgery to more regulars in its armed forces next year, aiming to improve the way they shoot, swim or pilot airplaines, the Straits Times said." That's a post from BusinessWeek.

Hiatian Teacher/Student Regains Sight

"It started with splintering headaches. Then there was double vision. It got to the point where 29-year-old Ezechias Toussaint couldn’t blink his right eye, so his cornea was exposed to scratches, and he endured stabbing pain and cloudy sight," says the News-Press. "The elementary school instructor and university student lives in the coastal city of Saint-Marc, about an hour north of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. In Haiti, poor vision can have severe consequences, as handicaps and illnesses are often misunderstood. And Toussaint, who was suffering from a type of facial palsy, couldn’t teach or learn when he couldn’t see to read.On Tuesday, Toussaint was in a Fort Myers operating room, receiving surgery that will allow him to close his eye once again, giving his cornea a chance to heal and restoring his sight. The $4,000 treatment, including an MRI and surgery, was donated by area medical personnel." For video go to NBC-2.com.

A Great 2011 for Opticians?

Will 2011 bring a retail rebound for opticians? If Christmas sales are a sign of things to come, then yes. "After a 6 percent free fall in 2008 and a 4 percent uptick last year, retail spending rose 5.5 percent in the 50 days before Christmas, exceeding even the more optimistic forecasts, according to MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, which tracks retail spending," according to a NYTimes post.

The Times also reported:

Analysts offered several theories for the rebound in spending while the unemployment rate remained stubbornly high.

Stocks have soared to their highest levels in more than two years...

Pent-up demand is also showing up among middle-income shoppers: in government surveys, consumers have been expressing rising confidence for the last five months.

The luxury segment started heating up in late summer, said Joel Bines, a director in the global retail practice at AlixPartners....

The sales figures were bolstered by improved inventory controls among many retailers.

CL Sales Up

The financial blog Zack.com, a Forbes.com blog, reports Cooper Companies' current financial success comes from its Toric line. The sales for the company's vision segment "were up 10% from last year to $263 million. From that group, it’s Toric products, also known as soft contact lenses, saw the biggest gains, up 14% to $78 million. Its highest revenue product from this segment, non single-use sphere, was up a solid 10% to $110 million." The question is why in such a stagnant economy are CLs selling well? Maybe: that which was once considered a luxury is now a necessity.

MyOnlineOptical Attracting ECPs

"Essilor of America reported that it has built more than 600 online optical stores for independent eyecare professionals to date through its e-commerce initiative, MyOnlineOptical," according to a recent VisionMonday posting. "The company said the service has experienced a steady increase since its launch last spring, growing at a rate of approximately 100 ECPs per month."

3D without Glasses

According to io9, "Apple has applied for, and recently been granted, a patent for tech that could produce 3D images without the need for special eyewear." Wearing special eyewear to watch a movie or TV show never held much promise. Apple's development of hologram technology begs the question: How long will various designers offer 3D eyewear?

Bionic Eye Coming as Experimental Surgery

"Recruitment has begun for the first UK trial of a bionic eye, which can restore sight to blind people. The microchip implant has been tested in Germany, where it allowed patients to read letters and recognise objects," according to the Independent.

"Jersey" Boy (Optician) Makes Good in Africa

"A Jersey optician [from the Isle of Jersey, not the state] has returned from Burkina Faso in Africa after helping to improve the eyesight of thousands of people there," according to ChannelOnline. "Dave Baker was one of 8 volunteers to go on a 2 week project organised by Vision Aid Overseas. The charity sends opticians to various countries in Africa to carry out eye tests and give out glasses. Altogether they saw 2552 people, supplied 2246 pairs of specs and arranged for 584 people to have sight saving surgery by a partner charity, Orbis."

An Eye for an Eye--This Time in the Christmas Spirit

"Talk about a generous tip. Some customers at the 59 Diner near South Kirkwood Road gave their waitress a Christmas gift she never expected: a prosthetic eye for her daughter who survived cancer last year," reports KHOU.

Keeping an Eye on Santa's Travels

"A 55-year-old tradition continues this year as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, launches its Santa Tracker at 2 a.m. EST on Christmas Eve, with help from Google Earth. NORAD tracks Old Saint Nick with four high-tech systems -- radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets -- not to mention the help of volunteers and donations to offset the costs." That's the word from the WashingtonPost.