Transitions Introduces New Kids-focused Education And Paper

[Newsroom]

TRANSITIONS INTRODUCES NEW KIDS-FOCUSED EDUCATION AND PAPER
Healthy Sight Counseling for Children Seminars Address
Unique Vision Care and Vision Wear Needs of Children

Pinellas Park, September 24, 2007 – Expanding on its efforts to provide eyecare professionals with the educational tools and resources they need to communicate the importance of healthy sight to younger patients and their parents, Transitions Optical, Inc. is introducing a series of new course offerings.

The Healthy Sight Counseling for Children course series includes a COPE-approved module for optometrists and an ABO-accredited component for opticians and clinical review paper. Each seminar focuses on the Healthy Sight Counseling model of eye care, and illustrates how this model can serve as a foundation to address the unique vision care and vision wear needs of children. A brief Skills Workshop for Real Life course is also available for in-office use, providing a quick, practical overview of Healthy Sight Counseling for kids.

Healthy Sight Counseling is an integrated approach to eye care that promotes customized vision correction, maintenance and preventive eyecare, and increased professional and patient awareness of eye health through education. While Healthy Sight Counseling is a methodology that can be applied to patients of all ages, certain aspects of healthy sight – such as the need for ultraviolet (UV) and trauma protection, and even self- and peer-acceptance – are especially important for children.

“Healthy vision is critical to a child’s early educational, functional and social development – and a child’s eyes are more susceptible to certain risk factors that affect long-term ocular health, including impact and UV protection,” said Denis Fisk, global director of education, Transitions. “These courses will encourage eyecare professionals to take that extra step when making product recommendations for children by focusing on the full range of factors impacting a child’s healthy sight, and by taking the time to educate parents on what is required to optimize healthy sight now and preserve it for the future.”

The courses focus on providing both quality and quantity of vision, encouraging eyecare professionals to consider lens enhancements – such as impact resistant lenses, anti-reflective coatings, fixed-tint and photochromic lenses and polarized lenses – to address the individual needs of children. The courses also highlight the importance of screening children for ocular disease and refractive error at an early age, stressing the need to consider various factors – such as systemic medications and their impact on healthy sight – when examining children.

“The prompt detection and treatment of serious ocular abnormalities and potentially vision-threatening ocular diseases are critical to a child’s healthy sight, making it crucial that an initial eye screening be performed as early in life as possible,” said Susan Stenson, M.D., F.A.C.S., global medical director,
Transitions. “Additionally, a child’s eye is a developing eye, and growth spurts can affect the eye and its refractive status, as well as the rest of the body. For this reason, periodic reevaluation of vision is necessary up to, and through, adolescence.”

Recognizing that practitioner and patient education are key to the successful implementation of Healthy Sight Counseling, the courses also encourage eyecare professionals to adopt an integrated approach to Healthy Sight Counseling for the child – involving parents, pediatricians, teachers, athletic coaches and anyone else connected to the child’s overall health and safety.

The courses complement a Transitions-sponsored Healthy Sight Counseling and Children clinical review paper. This paper, which represents a collaborative effort on the part of a panel of experts in vision and child care – including an ophthalmologist, a pediatric ophthalmologist, an optometrist, a pediatrician and an ophthalmic educator – details several of the topics covered in the courses.

To take advantage of the new Healthy Sight Counseling for Children educational offerings, or to order a copy of the new clinical review paper, eyecare professionals should contact their Transitions Optical Solutions Team representative, or call customer service at (800) 848-1506.