One little girl found the excitement to be too loud

While Prince William and Kate, duchess of Cambridge, kissed on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after the Royal Wedding on Friday, April, 29, one little girl found the excitement to be too loud. Lady Louise is the daughter of Queen Elizabeth's youngest son, Edward, and his wife Sophie. Lady Louise has long been sheltered from public attention, due to the fact that she has an eye condition known as exotropia.

Exotropia is a type of strabismus, the technical term for a misalignment of the eyes, in which one or both of the eyes points outward. Strabismus is usually caused by poor muscle control in one of the six muscles that control eye movement. Typically the eyes work together to focus on an image, but in a patient with strabismus, the eyes do not focus on just one image. This may create double vision or confusion as the brain tries to make sense of the two different images it sees. Over time, the brain will override information from the turned eye, causing poor depth perception

It is estimated that up to 5 percent of all children have some form of strabismus.

There are several recommended therapies, including the use of patches or glasses to attempt to get the affected eye back into alignment. Strengthening the eye muscles and correcting farsightedness are excellent ways to improve the appearance and function of the affected eye. Vision therapies may also help focus the eye through activities requiring hand-eye coordination. Finally, surgery can be performed as a last resort. It is believed that Edward and Sophie have refused to put Lady Louise through eye surgery, but her participation in other forms of treatment is unknown.

Credit to http://news.yahoo.com

Click the title for direct link of the news.

WCO meeting

Ron Fyfe And Annette Morgan - NZ delegates

The mural at the PR College of Optometry - people from classical optics and recent students.

The Aricebo Observatory detector.

Before Easter, I was in the Caribbean (San Juan, Puerto Rico), for the 2011 World Council of Optometry meeting - I am fortunate enough to be the NZ delegate. We attended the 30th anniversary celebrations of the School of Optometry there, which is a US school following US courses (four-year pre-med then a four year course). They take about 60 students per year, and this year's intake are all from "off-island", so there is some concern that they all will want to return to the mainland after graduation rather than stay in PR.

Most of the work is done in the committees - Legislative, Fellowship Grants, Public Health and Education, so they are very hard-working as the standards of the profession vary so much around the world that everyone needs to be mindful of where each country is at present and where it needs to go. The Governing Board met with some members of the PR government, and the President had spent the previous week meeting with health ministers in several Caribbean and Latin American countries to explain what it is that optometry does and how professional optometry can benefit their citizens. In some countries, there is really no access to eye care (including glasses) and in others (such as NZ) we can treat some eye condtions with medications. In Kentucky, optometrists can use lasers to treat!

And the food and the fellowship were great! Plus Tim and I got to visit the Aricebo Radio Observatory (and the MSC in Houston on the way home!)

Happy Easter

Annette and staffs would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family the blessings of Easter.

Practice will be closed over Easter weekend. We will resume normal business hours on Tuesday , 26 April 2011.

Sorry I didn't post last week - optometrists lead busy professional lives! Seeing patients is, of course, the most important part of the job, but there is all the practice administration as well. But I am lucky because, as an NZAO Councillor, I get to do "other stuff" as well. Last week, I was in Auckland at the NZAO student awards' evening, where we got to meet many of our colleagues-to-be, optometrists in training, and to congratulate the winners of academic prizes offered by the NZAO. The next day involved a meeting with the Department of Optometry and Visual Sciences' staff and the Optometrists' and Dispensing Opticians' Board - we meet annually in a round-table meeting so the profession, the training/research institution and the regulation authority all have an idea as to what the others' issues are. In a fortnight, I shall be lucky enough to see another Optometry school...in Puerto Rico. But more of that in about a month! Happy Easter.

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New models in-store now.

With all the sorrow and drama from Christchurch after the earthquake on 22 February, things have been rather odd here lately. Earthquakes - Christchurch's (and our little ones)have replaced the weather as the topic of converstaion when patients come in. At least there was no tsunami warning, unlike that late February 2010 Chilean earthquake with everyone on East Coast beaches on alert - I remember as I was in the garden tidying up before my dad's birthday last year and felt a bit of deja vu this year...

Optometry has lost a great colleague in the Chistchurch quake. Paul Dunlop of Chistchurch was not at work that day - he was helping to dismantle a damaged organ in Durham St Methodist Church when the quake hit. Three of them died in the quake, with five getting out. Paul was a great clinician, a repected colleague and mentor and a really nice guy. He leaves a family, who are in our thoughts and prayers.

It will be a big funeral.

MODA Premium Package

"The Moda range arrives at Visique Kapiti Eyecare!

Visique Kapiti Eyecare, at the Pier building in Howell Road, Paraparaumu Beach, has seldom supplied “package” spectacles. We believe that you are an individual, your eyes are individual, and we enjoy tailoring frames and lenses to suit your prescription, your looks and your purse. But with the support of Essilor (who manufactures lenses in Auckland) and Euro-Optics (a New Zealand-owned frame wholesaler), Visique Kapiti Eyecare is really pleased to introduce the Moda range – frames and premium lenses in men’s, women’s, teens and children’s ranges.

The beauty of the Moda range is that there are models to suit most people, and the ability to provide stock lenses or specially-made lenses into the frames. The children’s and teen ranges are inexpensive enough to be suitable for parents whose children are eligible for the Enable spectacles subsidy, which was developed in conjunction with the NZ Association of Optometrists, which is the professional grouping of optometrists in NZ.

The Moda range for adults all has Crizal anti-reflective coatings included. This reduces annoying glare, especially with night-driving or computer-use, and, in any case, it makes the spectacles look better. The progressive lenses are Essilor X’ion – a great value-for-money lens that performs better than top-of the-range progressive lenses of only 3 or 4 years ago.

So, we at Visique Kapiti Eyecare are pleased that we can offer our patients a great value for money range of frames and lenses, but still catering to each person as an individual. Believe your eyes? You can at Visique!"

This is the article that we are placing in the "Kapiti Observer" to talk about Moda, the new frames and lenses' package. We've had the frames in for a week now, and the range has attracted a lot of interest. Nice styles, good colours, good quality for the price and excellent lenses - what more could you want?

Come in and see them soon!

Back to school 2011

With most schools and colleges starting back this week, it's time to remember that your child's vision is very important in learning. The school screening tests just check distance vision (and colour vision for Year 7 boys) and are really "focussed" :-) on seeing that the two eyes see similarly, so that they both develop in tandem. And of course much of classroom work, and homework, is to do with close vision - reading, writing, drawing, computer-based work. The school screenings do not test for this.

The Visique and NZAO websites explain more about the signs you should look for to see if your child might be having a visual problem - sore eyes, red eyes, rubbing the eyes, heaaches and avoiding using the eyes are the most obvious. But we recommend that every child in the middle school has a full eye exam, and from that we can often predict how well and how comfortably the child will see in most situations as he or she goes through school.

Sports vision is a speciality of some optometrists, so we can refer your budding archer, cricketer or clay pigeon shooter for extra visual training if need be. And sometimes wearing contact lenses rather than glasses means that school is a hppier place to be - many of us were called "four eyes" at school and I know that (unfortunately) this still happens.

Until 28 March, all children's vision exams (for children under 18) gain an extra 30 bonus Fly Buys points. So it is an especially good time to have your child's vision, eye health and eye co-ordination examined at present. Phone to book in soon.

Congratulations to Adrienne Stevens

Adrienne (owner of 180 Degree Cafe & Bistro Paraparaumu) bought a pair of Michael Kors sunglass and entered the competition using her Flybuys card. She is one of the two lucky winner in Kapiti region that won herself a gorgeous Michael Kors Gold Clutch. This clutch is the perfect companion for both formal or informal events. It screams sophistication and simplicity.

Congratulations from Team Visique Kapiti

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