Entries from February 2008
ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. I came across this a couple of days ago and remembered that I had done this to my phone and my wife’s phone some time ago and thought this information was worth sharing.
First a little background on ICE. A campaign was started by Bob Brotchie, and Vodafone in May of 2005, only a few months prior to the London terrorist attack. During the terrorist incident paramedics found that they had no way of getting in touch with some of the victim’s families. It was after this that the campaign really started to gain momentum.
To participate in the ICE program all you need to do is enter the contact information in the address book of your phone with ICE or ICE-Person’s name being listed as the last name. I also placed “in case of emergency” in the company name and my relationship to my contact in the title field.
You can add additional contacts as ICE2, ICE3 etc. I have listed my contacts twice, with one of the listings being with a space before ICE so it shows up first in your address book. I would also recommend making a category called emergency and associating the listings with that category. Don’t forget to tell your contact person that you have listed them in your phone.
Next it’s recommended to place a sticker on your phone so that a firefighter, policeman, paramedic or other first responder will know that your phone contains emergency contact information that is easy to find.
For more information on the ICE program or if you don’t want to make a sticker yourself you can get some great stickers and more information from IceSticker.com
For the month of March Total Eye Care will be offering free ICE stickers at both our Colleyville and Keller Offices.
Monday I’ll get back to some eye care related posts and answer some patient questions.
Categories: emergency
Tagged: Cell Phone, emergency, ICE, safety
Research funded by Fort Worth based Alcon has found that the over expression of the gene sFRP1 elevates the pressure in an eye, thus greatly increasing a patient’s risk for developing glaucoma. Discovery of a gene responsible for causing glaucoma is great news! Glaucoma is the second leading cause of irreversible blindness in the United States. Making the diagnosis of glaucoma in its early stage is often difficult. Early diagnosis is very important to prevent loss of a patient’s peripheral vision. New technology such as scanning laser ophthalmoscopes have made early diagnosis much more reliable, however, a gene test would be great. I hope we will be able to use this technology in our offices soon. If you would like to see the entire article you can find it here.
Technorati Tags: glaucoma, research, eye
Categories: Glaucoma · Optic Nerve · eye
We have some fun stuff today. Here is an optical illusion. there is a face in this picture. It’s hard to find, but once you find it you can’t look at the picture without seeing the face. Give up? Hint below.
Hint - Look near the bottom just left of the center line.
Here is a link to some more optical illusions from the same website.
Technorati Tags: optical illusion, fun stuff
Categories: Funny Eye Stuff
A: Accurate results can be obtained from children and adults whom can not communicate verbally. Rather than asking the patient “which is better”, objective tests are used which require no responses from the child. Computerized testing and a diagnostic procedure called retinoscopy can be used to determine an accurate prescription for young children. Drops can often improve the accuracy of these procedures. Your child will also be examined for “lazy eye”, abnormal ocular development, and eye diseases.
Frequently, the examination takes only 15-20 minutes, and the vast majority of children enjoy their time at the office. Best results are usually obtained if the visit is scheduled when your child is usually at his or her best, by avoiding nap times or typically fussy periods.
Technorati Tags: eye exam, child, eye care, optometrist, pediatric
Categories: FAQ · Refractive issues · children · examinations
A: An optometrist who is “therapeutic” is trained and licensed to treat eye diseases and write prescriptions as needed, in addition to ascertaining the need for visual corrections such as glasses, contact lenses and refractive surgery. A therapeutic optometrist has completed eight years of college and postgraduate instruction leading to the Doctor of Optometry (O.D.) degree and the conditions they treat and manage vary by state.
An optometric glaucoma specialist is an optometrist that has gained training in addition to that of an therapeutic optometrist allowing him or her to treat patients with glaucoma. The glaucoma specialist can also prescribe oral medications in addition to the topical ophthalmic medications prescribed by the therapeutic optometrist.
Technorati Tags: optometrist, glaucoma, eye care
Categories: Eye Care · FAQ
Without a doubt these are the questions that eye doctors are most frequently asked. It can be confusing when there are common terms for medical conditions. I hope this clears up some confusion. Our first posts will be about the different refractive conditions.
Myopia or nearsightedness is a condition where a person’s
uncorrected vision is only clear up close. Instead of the light focusing on the retina, it focuses in front of the retina. A myopic person can read a magazine, however their distance vision is blurry and requires glasses or contact lenses to make it clear.
Myopia is treated with glasses, contact lenses, LASIK, PRK or orthokeratology .
Technorati Tags: myopia, nearsighted, LASIK, PRK, Contact Lenses, OrthoK
Categories: Refractive issues
Many people feel astigmatism is a bad, progressive disease. Actually astigmatism is caused when light focuses in two points in the back of the eye because the eye is not in the shape of a sphere. An eye with astigmatism has often been described to be in the shape of an egg or football, to some degree this is true, though an astigmatic eye is not exaggerated to that degree. Most people have some astigmatism. Visually, a person with uncorrected
astigmatism will often see a faint shadow on letters or objects.
Emmetopia is when an image focuses on the retina. A person that is emmetropic has uncorrected “normal vision”.
Categories: Refractive issues
Hyperopia, commonly referred to as farsightedness, is when a person sees better in the distance than at near. Light entering the eye focuses behind the retina placing a blurry image on the retina. For a hyperopic person to see clearly at any distance a muscle, inside the eye, called the ciliary body, must focus the lens inside the eye. As we get older it becomes more difficult for the eye to accomplish this auto focusing. Because of the eye’s ability to focus, farsighted people often don’t need glasses until their 30s or 40s.
Uncorrected farsightedness, however, may cause a person to experience eyestrain or an eye turn (strabismus), depending on the degree of farsightedness and the patient’s age. The younger we are the easier it is for the eye to compensate for farsightedness. Uncorrected farsightedness can lead to amblyopia. Farsightedness and presbyopia are often confused.
Presbyopia
A person is presbyopic when the crystalline lens in the eye can no longer focus well at near, making reading glasses or bifocals necessary. A person can be both farsighted and presbyopic or nearsighted and presbyopic. Presbyopia typically begins in our early 40s. The older we get the more difficult it is for our eyes to focus at near. The effects of presbyopia level off in our mid to late 60s. Bifocals allows a person with presbyopia to see clearly at near and intermediate distances.
Categories: Refractive issues
Tagged: bifocal, farsighted, focus, hyperopia, presbyopia
