ADVANCED LOW VISION CARE - OT SOD

Course overview

Current trends are that healthcare professionals are increasingly providing direct services for low vision care, usually working in conjunction with eye doctors, who provide the patient¿s primary vision care. In this role, the healthcare professional should not only understand the basics of low vision care, but also many important advanced concepts and techniques, such as the laws of optics, familiarity with some of the optical and electronic options for near and distance tasks, and their advantages and disadvantages. Knowledge of training persons with a vision loss to use these devices optimally for various tasks, and about helpful non-optical devices which can assist patients in a variety of settings are needed as well. This includes assisting persons with vision loss from conditions ranging from macular degeneration to stroke to maximize the use of their remaining vision, with techniques such as eccentric viewing. This course helps arm healthcare professionals with the knowledge and skills to provide more advanced low vision care to persons with vision loss. It can also supplement introductory university courses and training in low vision that healthcare professionals may have received, to better equip them to work with patients with low vision.