Eye Care Services for Taxi Drivers

KBHB Eye Hospital organised successful eye screening camp for the Taxi Drivers in association with Bharatiya Taxi Chalak Sanghatana at Ghatkopar. The program was organised on 9th of June 2011. Total 200 taxi drivers and their family Members were screened from which 101 paitents were got the spectacles. 26 patients were referred for hospital treatment and remaining were identified normal.

All the patients who were normal will get free of cost treatment in the KBHB Hospital. Patients who prescribed with the spectcles will get the spectacles after 10 days at camp site. This program was conducted under Mumbai Eye Care Campaign.

Event for the Police at Antophill Police Station in association with tv9

Presbyopia.

What Is It?

As we age, the lens of the eye becomes increasingly inflexible, making it increasingly harder to focus clearly on near objects. This is called presbyopia. No one knows exactly what causes the lens to become inflexible, but it happens to everyone as a natural part of aging.

In order for us to see images clearly, light rays enter the eye, where the lens bends and focuses the rays on the retina. The lens changes shape to allow the eye to focu on objects at different distances. Beginning early in life perhaps as early as age 10 our lenses gradually stiffen and begin to lose the ability to change shape. By the time we are in our 40s, the lens has trouble focusing on close, and we begin to experience blurred vision when we try to do tasks that require up-close focus, such as reading or needlework. The lens continues to stiffen until about age 65, when nearly all its flexibility has been lost.

Presbyopia eventually affects everyone, even people who are already farsighted (hyperopic) or nearsighted (myopic). Because people who are farsighted already have difficulty focusing on near objects, they may experience presbyopia a little earlier in life. People who are nearsighted may find that their distance vision improves slightly, and may experience presbyopia a few years later in life.

Symptoms

Presbyopia causes the following symptoms:

• Words appear blurred at a reading distance that used to be comfortable.
• Reading material or other objects must be held farther away from your eyes to gain clarity or see details.
• Brighter light is needed to see clearly (bright light constricts the pupils, which changes the focus of the light on the retina).
• You have difficulty reading late at night, or when you are tired or stressed.
• Your eyes become uncomfortable, or you become tired or drowsy when doing close work because of the strain of eye muscles working to change the lens shape.
• You may have headaches as a result of muscle tension.

Diagnosis

Many people over age 40 diagnose presbyopia themselves based on their inability to read clearly at a distance that used to be natural and comfortable. Because the condition comes on gradually over many years, most people don't notice small vision changes and delay seeking professional help until the focusing problems interfere with daily life. Many optometrists joke that patients seek help only when their arms become "too short," unable to hold printed pages far enough away to see clearly.

Presbyopia can be diagnosed by an optometrist, ophthalmologist or physician, who will take a complete medical history to determine the extent of your vision problem. He or she will test your vision by having you read text at a distance that is typically comfortable to you. If the doctor diagnoses presbyopia, he or she will do a test to determine the extent of the focusing problem and the appropriate lens prescription. In this test, the doctor has you look through corrective lenses, and continues to increase the magnification power until the words on the page are clear to you and you are comfortable reading.

Expected Duration

Presbyopia cannot be reversed and gets worse as we get older. Vision changes stop around age 65.

Prevention

Nothing can be done to prevent presbyopia. It is an inevitable part of aging. However, people who do a lot of close visual work, such as working with a computer or intensive reading, may develop presbyopia earlier than others. If you do close work, take a 10-minute break every one to two hours to relieve strain on the eyes. Allow your eyes to focus on objects at a middle or long distance away to give your eyes a rest from close focusing. Be sure to use bright lighting when reading to help your eyes focus.

Treatment

Presbyopia can be treated with corrective lenses. Glasses are the simplest way to regain your ability to see close objects clearly. If you already wear corrective lenses for nearsightedness or farsightedness you may need two sets of glasses one for distance vision and one for close vision or glasses with bifocal lenses, in which the upper portion of the glass corrects for distance and the lower portion for near vision. Your optometrist or vision professional can order the appropriate prescriptions.

Standard, off-the-rack reading glasses may not be right for everyone. Contact lenses also can be used to treat presbyopia, although many people find it difficult to adjust to them. Bifocal contact lenses can be made, or you can get monovision lenses, in which one eye has a contact lens with a prescription for distance vision, and the other eye has a contact lens for up-close vision.

Source - http://symptomchecker.about.com/od/Diagnoses/presbyopia.htm

15.6 lakh blind people in UP

15.6 lakh blind people in UP

Cataract Surgery

Important Eye Care Tips

Eye Care Tips

• Take A vitamin diet to make eyes brighter. (papaya, eggs, fish, milk, cilantro etc.,)
  Wash eyes with cold water to get sparkling eyes.
• Put sliced cucumber over your eyes to treat
• Put potato slices on your eye to get rid off those dark circles.
• Soak amla overnight in water and use this water the next morning to wash the eyes.
• Soak cotton in Luke warm milk and cover eyes with it for 15 min.
• To soothe tired eyes, dip cotton pads in chilled milk and place on closed eyes for 10 minutes. Now relax completely.
• To completely relax the eyes and the surrounding muscles, close your eyes and think of something that is pleasant or soothing and at a distance. Now gently open your eyes and look into the distance. Next focus on an object at arm's length. Do this extremely relaxing exercise four or five times a day.
• If your eye twitches, or your eyes are red and feeling itchy, massage your scalp with curd.
• Soak 1 tsp. dry amla in one cup of water overnight. Next morning strain it through a muslin cloth and then add one extra cup of water. Splash your eyes with this solution each morning. This makes your eyes sparkle.
• For Puffy Eyes: Grate a potato with its peel and apply on your closed eyelids for about 20 minutes and relax completely. You may even take a nap.
• Wash your face before sleeping, and ensure that there is no make-up on your face before you sleep, because, make-up creams may spoil your face as it will be there for the whole night. It is better if no cream is applied. What I feel is, wash your face before sleeping and if at all you want to apply any cream, just apply night cream and none other than that.

Source - http://www.eyecare123.com/eyecaretips.htm

Mumbai Eye Care Campaign, initiative of Sightsavers, Standard Chartered Bank and KBHB Eye Hospital is one of the major partner

The Mumbai Eye Care Campaign aims at providing comprehensive eye care services to the people living in the slums, particularly the most vulnerable within those groups, such as women and children. The project will also target key workers with a low socio-economic status such as Auto drivers, construction workers and domestic workers. The population of Mumbai is estimated to be 12.7 million and 49% of these people live in the slums of Greater Mumbai.

Mumbai eye care campaign for the next 5 years will work towards raising eye health awareness amongst the population of Mumbai and establishing quality and affordable refractive error services through community based organisations and hospital partners. The campaign will also focus on creating awareness about rights of visually challenged, finding main streaming opportunities for them and providing services through networking with existing organisations.

The Mumbai Eye Care Campaign will focus on developing refractive error services for the Mumbai District, specifically in slums areas such as four slum pockets in Shivaji Nagar, Mankhurd, Trombay, Govandi, Chembur, Antophill, Wadala, Kurla, Dharavi, Bandra, Kandivali, and Andheri. These all the vision centres were managed by K. B. Haji Bachooali Hospital and Lotus College of Optometry.

Goal –

The overall goal of the Mumbai Urban CEC Campaign is to contribute to reducing avoidable blindness in Mumbai, specifically targeting the growing problem of uncorrected refractive error.

Objectives –

·         To work towards raising eye health awareness amongst poor urban population of Mumbai – 10 million people.

·         To facilitate the establishment of vision centres and refractive error services by working in close association with the community, governments and other service providers

·         To involve the private sector and other NGOs in order to sustain RE services

·         To train Low Vision personal and help set up Low vision centres

·         To develop and strengthen human resources and capacities

·         To conduct Research studies on various aspects of refractive services.

Vision Centre –

The Vision centre works as the heart of campaign. An integral part of VC is trained health workers who will visit door to door for screening and identity people with eye problems and refer them to VC for check up and treatment. At the VCs a team of trained qualified optometrists will screen people for refractive errors, and dispense spectacles. Persons requiring further treatment will be referred to the hospital. All the surgeries and treatment will be done free of cost.

Services provided through Vision Centres –

• Free of Cost Door to Door screening by the trained Health Workers
• Free of cost examination at Vision centre on specified days
• Provide quality spectacles as per patients’ choice for Rs.25 only
• Free of cost examination at KBHB eye Hospital to the referred patients
• Other treatment like low vision devices, surgery or medicine is free of cost to the patients.
• Awareness generation of eye care by pamphlets, posters, flexes, standees and personal counselling

 

Activities of MEC –

                               

v  Awareness generation among general population by street play, door to door visits, meetings, poster exhibitions, pamphlet distribution

v  To train volunteers, health workers, CBOs, NGOs and others in eye care

v  Door to door screening by the trained health workers

v  Examination at vision centre those who need further care

v  Spectacle disbursement within Rs. 25/-

v  Counselling to the patients who need further check up in the base hospital for surgery

v  Regular follow up of the referred patients to the centre and also of cataract patients by home visits

v  Collection of data for the research at vision centre and home visits

v  Organise various special camps in different slums

v  Organise event and special focused group screening program like Dabbawala association, rag pickers, beggers, police, domestic workers etc.

CME Program on "Ocular Oncology"

A CME program was conducted at K. B. Haji Bachooali Eye Hospital on the 19^th of March. The CME was on the topic of ocular oncology. The CME was chaired by eminent speakers from Tata Memorial hospital and KBHB. Madam S.V. Kane Professor and HOD Cytopathology spoke to the residents who came from the various teaching colleges from Mumbai. She spoke on how to identify pathology slides which are frequent exam questions. The other speaker Dr B.Vidyashankar, HOD - Oculoplasty and ocular oncology from KBHB spoke on techniques of management of ocular cancers and masses and methods of lid reconstruction. He also conducted a quiz to find out the comprehension of the students of the topic which was very encouraging.

KBHB Eye Hospital is very cousious about the training and academic part of eye care. Every months third Saturday is reserved for CME Programs on various issus. These programs are certified by Maharashtra Medical Council, Mumbai, for credit hours.

Time to speak about, Glaucoma - “sneak thief of sight",

 

12th March 2011 was a 4th World Glaucoma Day, KBHB Eye Hospital observed Glaucoma Day on 13th March 2011. The global observance was launched on March 6, 2008, through the joint initiative of the World Glaucoma Association (WGA) and the World Glaucoma Patient Association (WGPA) to strengthen the awareness of the public and people at risk of glaucoma on its detection, prevention, and treatment. KBHB Eye Hospital along with Sightsavers under Mumbai Eye Care Campaign observed World Glaucoma Day 2011 by organising Free Eye Check up camp for the Mill workers from Century Mill at Worli in association with local Mandal called Dattu Gawankar Mitra Mandal. The Objective of the event was to create awareness among the people about Glaucoma and to screen the patients for glaucoma and other eye problems and provide services to the needy patinets. Hospital is providing free treatment to those who identified with glaucoma and other eye problems from the camp.

To know more about Glaucoma -  

Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that cause progressive damage of the optic nerve at the point where it leaves the eye to carry visual information to the brain.

If left untreated, most types of glaucoma progress (without warning nor obvious symptoms to the patient) towards gradually worsening visual damage and may lead to blindness. Once incurred, visual damage is mostly irreversible, and this has led to glaucoma being described as the "silent blinding disease" or the "sneak thief of sight".



Normal Vision



Vision of Glaucoma patient



Glaucoma is the second most common cause of blindness worldwide. It is estimated that 4.5 million persons globally are blind due to glaucoma¹ and that this number will rise to 11.2 million by 2020². It is noteworthy that due to the silent progression of the disease - at least in its early stages - up to 50% of affected persons in the developed countries are not even aware of having glaucoma³. This number may rise to 90% in underdeveloped parts of the world.



There are several types of glaucoma. Some may occur as a complication of other visual disorders (the so-called "secondary" glaucomas) but the vast majority is "primary", i.e. they occur without a known cause. It was once believed that the cause of most or all glaucomas was high pressure within the eye (known as intraocular pressure - sometimes abbreviated as IOP). It is now established however, that even people without an abnormally high IOP may suffer from glaucoma. Intraocular pressure is considered therefore today as a "Risk Factor" for glaucoma, together with other factors such as racial ancestry, family history, high myopia and age.

Some forms of glaucoma may occur at birth ("congenital") or during infancy and childhood ("juvenile"); in most cases however, glaucoma appears after the 4^th decade of life, and its frequency increases with age. There is no clearly established difference in glaucoma incidence between men and women.



The most common types of adult-onset glaucoma are Primary Open Angle Glaucoma (POAG) - a form most frequently encountered in patients of Caucasian and African ancestry - and Angle-Closure Glaucoma (ACG), which is the more common in patients of Asian ancestry. Angle-Closure Glaucoma is often chronic, like POAG, but can sometimes be acute, in which case it usually presents as a very painful ocular condition leading to rapid vision loss.



There is no cure for glaucoma as yet, and vision loss is irreversible. However medication or surgery (traditional or laser) can halt or slow-down any further vision loss. Therefore early detection is essential to limiting visual impairment and preventing the progression towards severe visual handicap or blindness. Your eye-care professional can detect glaucoma in its early stages and advise you on the best course of action. (World Glaucoma Week)

Celebration of International Women Day 2011

Each year around the world, International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8. Hundreds of events occur not just on this day but thought March to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. Organisations, govenments and women's groups around the world choose different themes ech year that reflect global and local gender issues.

Blindness is an increasing global health problem that afflicts approximately 50 million peoples two - thirds of whom are women, and ninety percent of whom live in poorer counteries. Of the people who are blind in the world today, 64% are femal. Women and girls do not access eye care services as often as men and boys.

Women need better access to eye care services. In many developing nations, eye care services for women are not on the health agenda. Health authorities in the national level need to recognize the existing gender differences in access to eye care services. This could be the first step to reducing the disparity in eye-care treatment for women.

Education and awareness about the causes of blindness must begin at the family level. Programs must be kick started at the district and community level as well. With respect to women, families and men folk must be educated about the significance of sight restoring operations / treatment for women, to help them get back their sight. Blind women cannot contribute to the well-being of the family with ease. Initially they will be tolerated and gradually find themselves becoming a liability to the family. With access to timely treatment women with impaired vision can bounce back and lead more fulfilling lives.

Nearly 90% of people who go blind are from the developing countries. The main causes of chronic blindness are glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, cataract, trachoma, and age-related macular degeneration. Children could face problems in their vision due to deficiency of Vitamin A.

Refractive errors account for about 5 million people with impaired vision. Many of them continue to suffer low vision as they are unable to afford spectacles. These can be remedied with timely optical correction.

International Women Day, which observed on March 8^th, 2011, seeks to be an 'eye-opener' of sorts with its theme 'Gender and Eye Health' to ensure gender equality in the access of eye care services, which is unfortunately not the case in the world today. There is also a need to step up focus on visual impairment, blindness and rehabilitation of victims in the light of community. As prime responsibility of focusing on eye care KBHB Eye Hospital is observing this women day by organising special Eye Check Up and awareness camp for women working in unorganised sector. The program was organised in association with SALAH organisation at Bhandup (E). In this program Standard Charted Bank volunteers worked very hard for the success of the program. 

Performance of the Camp -

Total no. of patients Screened and Examined            - 155

Total no. of Spectacles disbursed                                 -  75

Total no. of patients referred for the further treatment  - 35
Total no. of patients identified with Cataract surgery    - 20
Total no. of patients found normal during the camp      - 25