Do Children Need to Wear Sunglasses

As we know that the sun can do harmful damage to our skin, so whenever we go out we often put on sun block to protect our skin.

But have you ever consider that our eyes are more sensitive than our skin.

To some parents , they often think how cute and trendy to have children wearing shares but they actually may be more than just a fashion accessory for our kids, it can also protect their eyes from harmful UV rays.

Do you know our eyes are naturally 10 times more sensitive to UV light , children are most at risk.

70% more UV light reaches the retina through a child's un-obscured crystalline lens.

80% of a lifetime's UV rays are absorbed by a child's eyes before age of 18.

The World Health Organization ( WHO) says children are at especially high risk of damage from UV radiation, recommend they wear children sunglasses and states that over exposure to the sun can cause or accelerate;

- inflammation of the cornea

- conjunctiva in the eye

- cataract development

- corneal sunburn ( photokeratitis )

- cancer development

Every year Visique runs Back to School campaign with great hope to educate the young about the importance of eyecare. Good habit starts early.

If your kids are enrolling as new entrant during first term of 2012 , make sure your school have registered with us for the quality free sunglasses with UV400 protection that meet Australian guidelines.

Local/community optometry.

Winnie has been back in Malaysia for the last couple of weeks - look forward to hearing her adventures when she comes back tomorrow. We have had several patients asking after her, hoping that she hasn't left permanently - she's made fans and friends from patients.

That's the thing about community optometry - we all live here, are local and are in for the long haul. Some of the large optical chains like employing graduates who are great clinicians, but get burnt out with seven day a week mall trading and being moved from one branch to another as holiday cover, and they never get a chance to develop relationships with their patients. Most of my day is spent talking to people whom I've come to know over the years, and it is a joy to see a familiar name in the appointment book.

It's the same with other health professionals. Once you have developed a relationship with your GP, dentist, podiatrist, chiropractor or whoever, you want to see that person again as you do not need to "reinvent the wheel" in your treatment or health programme. Seeing the same person for your care means that you know that both you and your practitioner are "on the same page" and you do not need to keep explaining your history again and again.

Hospitals often annoy patients for this reason - they feel that they are not being heard as the medical staff have to keep asking the same questions as new practitioners come on shift. It might be in the notes, but most of us want to hear the story and see it being told by the patient rather than just bald numbers on a chart.

So, your local Visique optometrist (Visique Kapiti Eyecare here) is part of your community and here for YOU, your eyes, your family, your eyecare.

Canine visitors and cataracts

We have had a couple of special guests coming into the practice this week. A lovely bear of a New Foundland dog - we have photos of 60kg of calm sitting in reception - and Oliver, my parents' Shih Tzu, who is more enthusiastic to see us (he's also younger).

Speaking of dogs, it can be obvious when your elderly dog has cataracts. Because they use smell rather than sight (in general) their behaviour doesn't change much until their vision is really poor. My in-laws' dog would only bump into furniture when she was really concentrating on a scent and her vision was poor, to be kind. But you can see a thick greyish sheen inside the eye - the pupil looks light not black - all the time, not just in certain lights.

This is very rare in humans, except in very poor parts of the third world. Most people are very disadvantaged visually with a cataract that is not apparent to the outside observer.

So if someone tells you that they could see a cataract in someone else's eye, it much more likely to be a problem of the cornea or even the conjunctiva, all anterior (front) of the eye rather than the lens (inside the eye).