News from the AOA's Blog

An innovative new half-day program at Optometry’s Meeting® is designed to help optometrists integrate vision training into athletic training programs. “Bringing Visual Performance Training to the Athlete: A New Paradigm” will provide hands-on training to attendees at a local state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility.

Optometrists who understand how to optimize vision can assist athletes in reaching peak performance, but until now, absence of an effective delivery model has been a barrier to full adoption of sports vision services in the sporting community.

Experts Alan W. Reichow, O.D., and Graham B. Erickson, O.D., will lead the course and explain why being an outstanding athlete takes more than excellent physical attributes. Read the rest of this entry ?

“See Better, Play Better” is the theme of the latest series of AOA Brand Promise four-color art prints to be offered by the AOA Order Department.

Suitable for display in optometric practices and other settings, the seven new 20” by 24” canvas prints – designed to remind patients of the importance of vision in sports performance – depict scenes of baseball, golf, soccer, and hockey. Read the rest of this entry ?

Jim Sheedy, O.D., Ph.D., of the Vision Performance Institute of Pacific University addresses “The Visual System and Virtual 3D.”

The AOA’s campaign to ensure that a public health message is part of the hoopla over 3D has resulted in hundreds of stories in the media, and has helped the association build partnerships with people in the information technology, filmmaking and entertainment industries.

The campaign continues AOA’s 3D education effort from last spring, tied to the release of the 3D movie Avatar, which  broke all box office records.  The campaign included Dominick Maino, O.D., discussing binocular vision and stereopsis.

After Nintendo issued a warning to consumers that children under 6 should not use its about-to-be-released 3DS handheld gaming device, the AOA and members of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) said, in essence, “not so fast.” Read the rest of this entry ?

The AOA Vision Rehabilitation Section (VRS) will again be offering the continuing education course “Reducing the Risk of Age-Related Vision Loss” to state associations in 2011. 

The National Eye Institute reported in 2004 that in the United States, more than 3 million people are affected by blindness or low vision due to cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, glaucoma or injury, and this number is expected to exceed 5 million by 2020. 

“Reducing the Risk of Age-Related Vision Loss” is a two- or three-hour Council on Optometric Practitioner Education (COPE)-approved course developed by the AOA VRS that includes education regarding the science of ocular nutrition and several case-based examples of current comprehensive treatments (nutritional, medical, and vision rehabilitative) highlighting age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy. Read the rest of this entry ?