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Good Clinical Practice in Orthokeratology
iGO SUMMARY: This clinical paper provides an overview of how Overnight Vision Correction (OVC) for which the technical term is orthokeratology has become established as an important treatment for correcting short-sightedness in the Asia Pacific region especially amongst children. The paper offers practical advice to opticians who wish to offer OVC treatment to their patients and provides guidance on the potential problems that need to be avoided in fitting overnight ortho-k corrective contact lenses.
ABSTRACT
Overnight Orthokeratology is becoming more and more popular especially in the Asia-Pacific region where treatment is primarily used for myopic control in children. Risk of complications in contact lens wear increases in overnight wear and may well further increase the treatment is used on children. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive guide to practitioners to improve their Orthokeratology practice and minimize unnecessary complications. The fundamental requirement for starting Orthokeratology practice is to have proper education in the area and to equip the practice appropriately.
Overnight trail fitting is recommended to confirm the physiological response prior to commencement of treatment. Practitioners should provide adequate information, both orally and in writing to patients before and after commencement of treatment to avoid any legal dilemmas and to improve patients compliance. Costs for treatment should be transparent and provision of emergency contact numbers is a must. Patients should be regularly recalled for aftercare visits and all communication with patients should be properly documented. In this paper, the patient selection and the clinical procedures are discussed and a standard practice in Orthokeratology is proposed. We believe that the key to safe Orthokeratology practice is to continually update knowledge in the field and to practice to the highest professional standards.
Contact Lens Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Contact Lens and Anterior Eye 31
(2008) 17 -28. Pauline Cho, Sin Wan Cheung, John Mountford, Peter White School
of Optometry The Hong Kong Polytechnic University SAR China.
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