Aniseikonia – How
many patients are
suffering needlessly?
Nobody likes Aniseikonia. ODs don’t like to talk about it. Patients only know it as they have to “get used to” the way they see through their glasses. It’s difficult to describe. And difficult to diagnose. And there really hasn’t been anything that we can do about it.
Patients can’t report that their problem is “image size disparity and trouble fusing.” How would they recognize that? They just know that their glasses aren’t what they want them to be – comfortable. But they get headaches, eyestrain, light-sensitivity, difficulty reading, even nausea and fatigue, which they may or may not attribute to their glasses at all.
Clinical trials and research indicate that aniseikonia induced by glasses is the principal cause of patient discomfort with eyeglasses. But how many patients are experiencing this discomfort?
There are no norms for tolerance of aniseikonia. But all glasses can create aniseikonia, because all glasses create prismatic effect by virtue of looking through a lens.
So how many patients are affected? How many times, as an OD, have you had to tell a patient that they will “get used to” their new glasses? How many patients come back with complaints about their glasses? How many patients do we label as “difficult” or “non-adapts”?
Aniseikonia is more prevalent than we think. And now there is a solution, with the new patent-pending SHAW lens. Isn’t it worth working with patients to provide for them the most comfortable lenses possible. The SHAW lens. |
