Kate, Marissa and Courtenay leading the Optometry Profession in Queensland.

Kate has recently had her official photos taken as President of the Optometrists Association of Australia, QLD/NT Division. Kate was elected unopposed as President in November 2010 and will continue her term until November 2012. The Optometrists Association of Australia (OAA) is the peak professional body for optometry, representing 95% of Australia’s 4000+ optometrists in the profession’s interactions with government, the public, and other health providers; as well as providing professional education and practicing support to optometrist members.

Marissa has been involved with the OAA QLD/NT Board as an Observer since 2011; and Courtenay was recently also accepted to sit as a Board Observer after doing the same in Tasmania in 2011. The Board recently undertook governance and strategy training by the Australian Institute of Company Directors – see Kate, Marissa and Courtenay in action below! This training was then followed by a strategic planning day, led by President Kate, which was a first for the OAA QLD/NT Division.

An official OAA QLD/NT Board photograph was also taken at the strategic planning day – Courtenay was at GJO that day, but you’ll spot Marissa and Kate below.

Kate, Marissa and Courtenay all enjoy contributing to their profession on both a leadership and educational level, with Kate already speaking at several conferences and educational days in 2012, and heading overseas to speak at the British Contact Lens Association conference in England in May. Marissa and Courtenay both preparing for the North Queensland Vision Conference in Cairns, in June, where they will both present two lectures. We love talking about eyes!

ELEPHANT FITTED WITH A CONTACT LENS

An elephant at a Dutch zoo has become the first in Europe to be fitted with a contact lens. Win Thida, a 45-year-old Asian elephant residing at Amsterdam’s Artis Zoo, injured her eye during an altercation with a fellow elephant that left her with a scratched cornea. The scratch caused her eye to continue watering and she had trouble keeping it open due to increased glare associated with a damaged cornea.

The zoo called in veterinarian Anne-Marie Verbruggen who has had experience fitting horses with contact lenses to help Win Thida’s cornea from becoming infected. This was Verbruggen’s first attempt at fitting an elephant with a contact. "The main difficulty was her height," Verbruggen told the Irish Times. "Elephants can't lie down for long before their immense weight impairs their breathing, so I used a ladder to get close enough. It wasn't ideal, but it worked. She seemed happier straight away."

Win Thida had to be anaesthetized in a standing position and was required to train daily with Verbruggen for weeks in preparation for the procedure. It took tall ladder and a support team to complete to process. The contact lens was fitted in under an hour and Win Thida’s cornea should now be able to heal properly. Win Thida was born in Burma in 1967 and arrived in the Netherlands in 1989. She has resided at the Artis Zoo since 2004.

Vision impaired paralympian Jessica Gallagher stands to make history as the first Australian paralympic athlete to win medals at both the summer and the upcoming winter Olympic Games.

As if this outstanding achievement is not enough, 25 year old Jessica has taken on the role of Vision 2020, Australia’s first Global Ambassador – a position that will help raise awareness of the work that is being done in the Asia Pacific to eliminate blindness of some of our poorest neighbours.

As the peak body for the eye health and vision care sector, Vision 2020 Australia aims to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020. Globally, approximately 285 million people are blind or vision impaired. Some 90 per cent of the world’s blindness exists in developing countries and is said to be both a cause and a consequence of poverty. In Australia, almost 575,000 people are blind or vision impaired. As Australia’s population ages, this figure is predicted to rise to almost 801,000 by 2020.
Jessica has said: “obviously, losing my own sight means that this is an issue that is close to my heart and I am happy to be able to give something back.” She has also made it clear that she feels lucky to live in Australia and have access to such good medical and disability services. Her role will include turning the spotlight on the difference Australian aid and work is having and raising the awareness of the link between blindness and poverty.
Jessica, who is also an osteopath, was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition (cone dystrophy) at the age of 17, and is now legally blind. Never one to sit on the sidelines, as an active sportswoman Jessica switched from netball to athletics, and later also to skiing. After only being on skis for just 150 days, Jessica competed in the slalom skiing event with her guide Eric Bickerton at the Vancouver Paralympic Games in 2010 where she made history as the first Australian woman to ever win a medal at a winter games. In London, she will be competing in javelin and long jump.

Keep up with her sporting and ambassadorial activities via her blog at http://jessgallagher.blogspot.com and via twitter @JessGallagher86 or via www.vision2020australia.org.au

Welcome to the future. 

It is a bizarre thought to think that we are living in the future. It is stories like this one that makes you realise how far we have come as human species and all the amazing places we are going. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is currently developing at their Washington-based Innovega iOptics laboratory, contact lenses which allow a wearer to view virtual and augmented reality images in real time. Instead of oversized virtual reality helmets, digital images are projected onto tiny full-colour displays that are very close to the eye, which allows the user to focus simultaneously on objects that are close up and far way. The goal is for the lenses to be used for reading short emails, text messages and news. In the future possibilities are pretty amazing. It could act as your GPS while you’re driving, help you look up information, and even augment reality.

Developed as part of the Soldier Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras program, the objective of the lens is to develop novel imaging capabilities and explore joint designs of hardware and software that gives warfighters access to systems that greatly enhance their awareness, security and survivability. Innovega, which demonstrated the technology at their consumer electronics show in January, hopes to have a consumer version of the iOptik system ready by late 2014.The engineers are saying the lenses could also be helpful in monitoring blood sugar levels in the body and sending out a signal in case of an emergency. Let’s imagine what the future could look like: the battery could be in an earpiece, where you could control the lens display by using voice recognition, like Siri. Your computer/phone and additional controls could be in your watch.

The lens is being created by integrating control and communication circuits, and miniature antennas into a conventional contact lens using custom-built optoelectronic components. Those components will eventually include hundreds of LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye, such as words, charts, and photographs. Much of the hardware is semitransparent. In all likelihood, a separate, portable device will relay displayable information to the lens’s control circuit, which will operate the optoelectronics in the lens.

"So we already have a built-in market. We envision that people who pick up their lenses every six months or so might switch to these lenses”.

Video Games: Are they damaging your vision?

Video games are rapidly improving and in 30 years we have gone from vector (shapes and lines) to sprite (2D pixelated images) to polygon (3D graphics). Video games are also one of the most popular forms of media with the Call of Duty Franchise selling over 100 million copies. That's at least 200 million eyes looking at a TV for on average 9 hours a week or 19 days a year.

Video games are like cartoons; remember the original Mario? Nintendo would place many still images of Mario together so whenever he moved he looked like he was actually walking like any normal man (if we were all pixelated of course!). Game developers program the sprites to flick quickly between each other which gives the impression that Mario is actually walking! This action requires both your brain and eyes to work together - sprites are very simple whereas polygons require your brain to work even harder as your brain has to process a 3D image doing the same thing. This tires your brain out fairly quickly and this fatigue is what some researchers are worried about. 

The theory is that video games in large doses can cause strain on the eyes. This is called computer vision syndrome - some of the symptoms include blurry vision, headaches, eye irritation and double vision. Up until recently computer vision syndrome's symptoms was only a worry for adults, but now that we all have easier access to screens with tablets, phones, computers, TV and consoles even children are displaying the symptoms too! Eye health professionals have recommended limiting use time of electronics, and whenever playing video games make sure to look at an object approximately 6 meters away from you every 15 minutes. Also, make sure to take short breaks every hour and don't forget to see your Optometrist regularly. I hope you've learnt something interesting!