Low-Vision Conference in KL

Feb 24, 2011

By Sharon Siddique

MDS President

in Kuala Lumpur

As I found on arrival at the 10th International Conference on Low-Vision, this is a biannual conference attended primarily by optometrists specializing in low vision – and there are hundreds of them.  The primary organizer is the ISLRR (International Society for Low-Vision Research and Rehabilitation). Country hosts were the Malaysian Association for the Blind and The Tun Hussein Onn National Hospital. The theme this year is Vision Rehabilitation – Towards Better Living.

It was really a packed programme! Each day was full of concurrent plenary sessions, workshops, and symposiums.  Not to mention a hall full of exhibitors, and over 80 poster displays over five days. Hard to take it all in!  And very frustrating that I was often left to choose between two or three presentations that were running simultaneously.

I’ll try to give you a flavour of what I found most useful from the perspective of a patient with macular degeneration.

•       Wow! So many countries have very well-developed national programmes to support low-vision training, rehabilitation, and research.  These run in hospitals, universities, and health research institutes.   There were practitioners from Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Australia, UK, India, USA, Spain, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Sweden, Ghana, Sudan, France, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, Belgium, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, China, Italy…. I’m sure I have left out some countries, but you get the idea!

•       Similarly, the topics of research represented so many areas of interest to us requiring low-vision training, counseling, and equipment.  Some topics which I found most informative were:

o   Depression & Vision Impairment
o   Accessing Low Vision Rehabilitation
o   Efficiency of Low-Vision Devices
o   Quality of Life & Functional Vision
o   Paediatric Vision Rehabilitation
o   Impact of Loss of Central Vision
o   Training & Rehabilitation Models
o   MD & Coping with Vision Loss
o   Vision Field Assessments
o   Enhancement of Reading Performance
o   Vision & the Brain
o   Use of Distance & Near Vision Aids
o   Vision Impairment & Daily Living
o   The Mind and Vision

There were dozens of presentations under all these topics and more.  If you want to keep track of what optometrists are thinking and doing, I would suggest you watch this space:  ISLRR. The next conference will be in Melbourne in 2014.  Some of you might like to plan on attending.

Yoga promotion for MDS members

Dear MDS members,

The kind people at All About Yoga recently held a free session for us at their studio. They are now offering a special package of yoga lessons. Please see details in this letter from All About Yoga below.

Special Package for MDS Members

10 sessions @ $80 Nett. (U.P. $200)

• Bookings must be made in advance.
• Can attend different classes.
• Expiry period of 2 months.
• Recommended class participation of at least twice per week.
• Payment by Cash only.

We hope more people will be exposed to yoga and experience the benefits that yoga can bring to their health. We are open to discussions. Do feel free to contact us if you require more information. We hope to hear from you soon. Thank you.

Warmest Regards:
Sharmaine Lee
Sales Associate
All About Yoga Pte Ltd
Website: www.allaboutyoga.com.sg
Contact Number: 6501-9380

Use of Eccentric Viewing strategy

MDS Talk
Date:  19 March 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: Seminar Room, Alexandra Hospital

People suffering from Macular Degeneration typically find difficulties in recognising faces, driving, reading, watching television or even seeing in colour. This is because the central part of the retina (“the macular”) has been affected by the disease. 

Whilst medical treatment stabilises the condition, the visual outcome usually remains to be challenging for patients to cope with during their activities in daily living. Often, this means that one will have to find new ways of doing things and Eccentric Viewing is a strategy that is commonly prescribed during low vision rehabilitation. This will require one to learn a new technique in seeing and particularly whilst using magnifiers.

In short, Eccentric Viewing strategy involves training a non-affected part of the retina (“the para-foveal region”) to be used whilst reading and the method of training using this strategy will be discussed by Mr Yap Tiong Peng. He will also be conducting a demonstration with MDS President Dr Sharon Siddique who had found this technique helpful.

About the speaker
Yap Tiong-Peng is an optometrist at IGARD Group. He obtained his full registration since 1998. His special interest is in Paediatric Optometry, Low Vision, Contact Lenses, Sports Physio Eye Development, Intuitive Colorimetry and Vision Therapy. He conducts Low Vision assessments routinely and he is also an active prescriber of Bioptic telescopes.

Tiong-Peng received his optometry training in Manchester, where he graduated with a UMIST Honours degree. He also completed a Master degree in Engineering and Physical Sciences in Medicine from Imperial College in London. Tiong-Peng is also a sessional part-time lecturer and clinical supervisor. His most recent teaching assignment was to deliver a full course in Advanced Visual Neurophysiology for Singapore Polytechnic - University of Manchester Bachelor of Science degree programme in Optometry. He was formerly a research fellow in Ophthalmology and Visual Science at Alexandra Hospital.

Call Anne at 6238-7387, or e-mail alleyes@singnet.com.sg to reserve your places now! This event is free for all MDS members.

Blindness cause clue discovered

By Jame Gallagher

Health Reporter

BBC News

An international team of researchers has found a clue to one of the leading causes of blindness, which they hope could eventually lead to a cure. Age-related macular degeneration affects 500,000 people in the UK and is incurable.

The study in the journal Nature found an enzyme known as DICER1 that stops functioning, resulting in the illness. UK experts said it had the potential to be an important breakthrough.

The macula is a part of the eye which sits in the centre of the retina and is responsible for the fine detail at the centre of the field of vision. As the disease progresses that central vision declines, making reading, driving and recognising people difficult. It affects one in 50 people over 50 and one in five people over 85. The exact cause is unknown, but risk factors include smoking, high blood pressure and having relatives with the condition.

The researchers noticed the enzyme DICER1 was less active in the retina of people with the more common "dry form" of the illness and when they turned off the gene which makes the enzyme in mice, then the animal's retina cells were damaged. It was then discovered that DICER1 is necessary for destroying small pieces of genetic material called Alu RNA. Without DICER1, the Alu RNA accumulates with toxic consequences leading to the death of the retina.

Professor Jayakrishna Ambati, from the University of Kentucky, told the BBC: "This work opens many new doors of research. First, we need to identify various classes of molecules that can either increase DICER1 levels or block Alu RNA so that these can be evaluated in clinical trials.

"Second, we need to understand more about the biological processes that lead to reduction in DICER1 levels and the precise source of the Alu RNA transcripts."

Professor Ian Grierson, school of clinical sciences at the University of Liverpool, said: "This is a great piece of science which provides another jigsaw piece which we need to put together with other findings. It was done in an animal model which is a long way from the patient, the breakthrough is we've got another player."

Professor Mike Cheetham, head of molecular and cellular neuroscience at UCL, said: "It's a potentially very important breakthrough which gives insight into this dry form of the disease. It could provide new pathways to therapy, but the findings need to be validated by other researchers."

Cathy Yelf, spokesperson for the Macular Disease Society (UK), said: "This is a very interesting piece of research and provides us with another valuable piece of the AMD jigsaw. It will not change a thing for patients immediately but it may lead to new treatments in the long term."