- Doctors of optometry ‘critical’ to helping patients with mental illness
- Optometry’s essential role in concussion recovery
- When to consider referring for low-vision rehabilitation
- The role of sex hormones and aging in dry eye disease
- 3 reasons to read AOA’s newest clinical practice guideline
- Identifying reading difficulties in children
- Mobilizing against myopia
- New AOA clinical guideline puts focus on elevating care of glaucoma patients
- Tips for reinforcing optometry’s role in the broader health care system
- Vision loss makes list of 14 risk factors for dementia
- The ‘gatekeepers of primary eye care’
- Myopia report calls for disease classification, new federal policies
- High-tech solutions for low vision
- Optometrists play an integral role in assessing and treating patients with traumatic brain injuries.
- Primary care of the stroke patient
- Research on eye aberrations not abstract to award-winning scientists
- AOA, CooperVision mobilize to ‘disrupt the status quo,’ advance new standard of care for children with myopia
- What do the experts say on genetic testing for IRDs?
- Pediatric keratoconus prevalence higher than believed, may change care approach
- Making blurry vision clear
- Unblurring the lines
- Appreciating optometry’s value to patients with diabetes and their primary care physicians
- 9 benefits of introducing laser procedures into your practice
- 5 considerations if you’re thinking about adding laser procedures to your practice
- Optometrist-performed YAG capsulotomies shown effective, safe and beneficial for patients
- Proof not positive yet on low-dose atropine for myopia in children
- For 128 million U.S. presbyopes, doctors of optometry can provide treatment options
- What’s up, doc? Can a dietary supplement reverse patient cataracts?
- Legal blindness in America
- AOA webinar addresses concerns about myopia management
- AOA serving patients through research in optometry
- Marijuana sensibilities changing fast: Are you ready for patients’ questions?
- Buzz builds for AOA virtual ePosters event
- New AOA adult eye guideline
- New technology for the advanced AMD patient
- Interprofessional communication for diabetic eye care
- Contact lens experts weigh in on gaps in consumer knowledge
- Align your team on binocular vision disorders
- How to better manage dry eye disease
- eyes the brain and learning
- Can vision intervention slow onset of dementia
- New independent task force recommendation on glaucoma screening underwhelms
- Gene therapy vision rehabilitation for IRDs
- 2022 contact lens controversies
- The latest research from AOA members
- Caring for patients with special needs
- New discoveries aid understanding of the visual system
- Don’t let the pressure get to you or your patients
- How technology has changed recommendations for visually impaired children
- 12 ways to provide better care for patients with prediabetes and diabetes
- Alzheimers and eyes
- Level up your diabetes care with specialists, services collaboration
- Behind the lens
- Contact lens developments regarding keratoconus
- Managing the care of patients with contact lens-related dry eye
- Lens-based strategies to address reading issues due to mild, disease-related vision loss
- Study shines light on optogenetics in retinitis pigmentosa
- surgical procedures courses
- Genetic Testing and Gene Therapy
- low vision in your practice
- EBO to produce new glaucoma clinical practice guideline
- details of visual functions immediately following marijuana use
- Understanding Photophobia in mTBI
- New myopia management guidance released
- The challenges of maintaining a healthy tear film
- Integrating models of diabetic eye care
- Dry Eye and Productivity
- Contact lens innovation delivers opportunity
- How face masks affect the eyes
- Marijuana dispensaries still blow smoke over glaucoma effects
- Conjunctival Lymphangiectasia and Fabry
- Techniques to enhance contrast
- Americans remain at high risk for vision loss
- Stimulating eye and vision research
- Allergic conjunctivitis in a COVID-19 world
- Atropine in myopia control
- sleep patients ocular health
- CDC US coronavirus spread expected
- Demystifying dizziness
- Optometry and Glaucoma patients
- 5 reasons why doctors should use AOA diabetes guideline
- Growing epidemic of adolescents and young adults with prediabetes
- Improving scanning efficiency of individuals with homonymous hemianopia
- second edition of diabetes clinical practice guideline
- Pupil patterns in youth a phenomenon
- Study high school sports concussions underscores optometry role in care
- Prototype imager of tear film sublayers opens eyes on dry eye
- Retinal measurements hold clues to Alzheimers disease
- reversing prediabetes to normoglycemia can lessen microvascular complication risk
- Detecting the signs of autism at earlier age using visual cues
- Eye disorder CRISPR technology
- Addressing elderly vision impairment
- The AMD aspirin balancing act
- Study looks at what patients understand about their glaucoma diagnoses
- Vision Rehabilitation Clinical Pearls Lens Rx Prescribing for the Patient with Traumatic Brain Injury
- Real partners in diabetes care
- Amblyopia More than meets the eye
- New mild TBI guideline for children provides opportunity for doctors of optometry
- Reading corneal signs
- Eyes on Alzheimers disease
- Study looks at potential of suppressing ocular cancer in children
- Doctors of optometry are members of post-concussion team
- Glaucoma & Exercise
- The ABCs of MGD
- When T-cells go bad
- Study opens eyes to Alzheimers disease risk
- Understanding MGD
- Sjogren’s dry eye disease and depression
- Are patches the answer to amblyopia
- Oranges may allay AMD risk Pulp fact or fiction
- myopiatech
- Cognitive Decline
- Myopia Genes Discovered
- Link between diabetes and MGD
- alzheimers clues could be found using eye scan
- Genetic markers may help predict elevated IOP
- Ebola vector-borne diseases rear ugly heads again
- Blue lights link to prostate and breast cancers
- Can dyed contact lenses help color perception in CVD patients
- Omega 3 and Dry Eyes
- Glaucoma-Cannabinoid NP Drop
- Genetic Testing for AMD
- Premature Babies Low Birthweight Eyes
- ASD & Accommodative Function
- Stem Cells and Wet AMD
- Sjogren Awareness
- Brain Injury Awareness
- Sleep apneas interplay with corneal hysteresis
- New blood pressure guideline
- Low vision patient future
- Retinoblastoma-detecting ocular cancer in children
- Winter Dry Eye
- Low Vision and Blindness to Double
- New guidelines detecting retinoblastoma in children
- Glaucoma protein biomarker
- Risk for normal-tension glaucoma rises
- Peripheral reaction time faster in deaf adults
- New therapeutic target could reduce diabetic retinopathy
- diabetes on the rise among the young
- Trabeculoplasty Commentary
- Seniors near vision loss dementia risk linked
- Can frequent anti VEGF injections increase glaucoma surgery risk
- Study stresses stress test in treating patients with AMD
- Contact lens helps predict speed of glaucoma progression
- Unique retinal cell dysfunction triggers myopia
- Preeclampsia years later still takes toll
- How tilted optic discs may affect myopic eyes
- New eye test is early detector of diabetes
- Anti VEGF injections may not work for allglaucoma sooner
- New technique could diagnose glaucoma sooner
- Myopia incidence piques control efforts initiatives
- Study links visual impairment to physical and cognitive function declines
- Benefits unfamiliarity proves barrier to diabetes care
- Eyes on Alzheimers
- Association found between TBI and neurodegenerative conditions
- Spotting the link between vision problems and ADHD
- Treating the digital eye
- Statins show continued potential as treatment for dry AMD
- How doctors of optometry can diagnose a rare disorder
- Could eye drops be an alternative treatment to cataract surgery
- Researchers zero in on potential dry AMD treatment
- Ranibizumab proves effective to treat proliferative diabetic retinopathy
- Study shows some drivers with glaucoma naturally adapt
- Doctors of optometry a crucial component in cataract care
- Be part of the national dialogue about diabetes
- Under pressure addressing hypertension
- Gene therapy successful in treating rare retinal disorder
- The lowdown on treating low vision patients
- New study calls attention to importance of carotenoids
- 5 things doctors of optometry should know about concussions
- Can a supplement fight diabetic retinopathy
- Outdoor activity may reduce risk for myopia in children
- 3 reasons comprehensive exams matter for diabetes
- Diabetes and Prediabetes
- Vitamin C may slow progress of cataracts
- Multifocal contact lens effective at treating myopia in kids
- New tool educates and motivates patients with diabetes related eye disease
- Myopia Its in your genes too
- Out of the box thinking leads to potential glaucoma treatment
- Doctors of optometry have big role in catching giant cell arteritis before blindness
- Cataract surgery lessens death risk
- Novel glaucoma therapy One ring to help them all
- Common glaucoma drugs may affect IOP measurements
- Gene mutation uncovers potential treatment for rare form of pediatric glaucoma
- How astigmatism affects reading fluency
- FDA approves first corneal cross linking system for treatment
- Cataracts and UV exposure in driver-side windows
- Virtual model aids diabetic retinopathy progression understanding
- doctors of optometry AMD assessments comparable to ophthalmologistsoutcomes
- Parkinsons detectable through eye exam
- Are sleep apnea and asthma linked to keratoconus
- Not a dry eye
- Eye on head injuries
- Risk for macular degeneration linked to low levels of vitamin D
- Tears now fears Zika persists in eyes
- Myopia Controlling the heretofore uncontrollable
- advancing keratoconus care
- visual dysfunction after brain injury
- Study detects early biomarkers for risk of developing diabetic retinopathy
- Prevalence of Undiagnosed AMD
- Daily use of steroid drops increases risk for ocular hypertension
- Zikababy
- New study dry eye disease
- Encyclopedia of dry eye disease released
- Clinical Pearls for Seasonal Allergies
- Doctors of optometry less likely to prescribe seldom needed antibiotics for conjunctivitis
- T cells hold promise of treatment for preemies born with eye condition
- Youth Concussions
- New imaging techniques detect earlystage Alzheimer’s disease
Are your patients adhering to diabetes self-care standards? Here's how you can help
February 11, 2021
Researchers found only about 30% of patients with diabetes abide by four diabetes care practices—including eye exams.
Daily self-monitoring of blood glucose, foot checks, cholesterol checks and annual, dilated eye examinations—patients are advised these practices done in conjunction can help fend off diabetes-related complications, researchers say.
Yet, adherence to these standards was below average among patients with diabetes, say authors of a study published Jan. 19, 2021, in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.
Among the 30,780 participants studied, only about 30% abided by all four diabetes care practices, they found. Further, cost-related variables, such as having health insurance and/or a personal doctor, “were positively associated with diabetes care practices, with the strongest association observed for adherence to more costly practices (annual eye examination and cholesterol check) vs. less costly ones (daily blood glucose check, daily foot check).”
Assessing variations in diabetes self-care practices and factors linked with differences in adherence was the purpose of the study. Data from the 2017 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey was used.
Among the findings:
- Adherence concurrently to all four diabetic care practices was low (30%), though a higher percentage of study participants complied with individual, not all, practices.
- Daily foot checks were not as common (60%) and annual eye examinations more common (69% vs. 62%) in 2017 compared to 2010 data.
- Risk factors for adherence were linked to individual care practices for diabetes. Practices more closely related to cost and access to care, such as eye exams, showed lower adherence compared with less costly, home-based practices, such as foot checks.
The authors conclude the study by offering potential solutions for increasing adherence.
“These findings suggest that stronger adherence may require diabetes care practice-specific strategies, such as improved accessibility or more comprehensive insurance coverage for clinic-based practices, and targeted early education for home-based practices,” the researchers say.
“Encouraging early adherence may reduce complications and unnecessary future costs, particularly in high-risk subgroups,” they add. “Given that the highest adherence was observed for annual cholesterol checks, adherence to the remaining diabetes care practices could be reinforced at the same time that a health care provider orders a cholesterol test.”
Education among keys to adherence, doctors say
Diane Russo, O.D., MPH, associate professor of optometry at the New England College of Optometry, teaches several courses in patient care. Dr. Russo finds grounds for hope and concern in the study.
“For optometrists, I think it's encouraging to see that there has been an increase in eye exams for patients with diabetes compared to the same survey results from 2010, which means we're trending in the right direction,” she says.
“However, there was also evidence that patients with less severe disease were less likely to adhere to the diabetes care practices,” she adds. “This is something doctors can keep in mind for implementing the ‘targeted early education’ discussed in the article.”
To increase adherence, Dr. Russo says, doctors can include education of all four diabetes care practices as part of their diabetes patient education. But one challenge highlighted in the study was that patients with less severe disease in particular are less likely to follow the four practices all together.
Further, the study identifies “a very real barrier” to care—a lack of health insurance that can cover the cost of an annual eye exam, Dr. Russo notes. According to the study, the lowest percentage of patients following the care practices (16.4%) were those without health care coverage.
“Expanding access to health insurance is an important step in providing access to needed eye care services to all patients, but patients with diabetes specifically based on this study,” she says. “Doctors could be participating in advocacy work to expand access to care in the form of health insurance for all.”
Paula Newsome, O.D., M.S., practices in North Carolina, where she manages a program called “KNOC out Diabetes™.” The program emphasizes patients’ self-management of their disease, including nutrition, counseling and eye health.
Doctors of optometry, Dr. Newsome says, can make a real difference to patients with diabetes because of their geographic diversity. Ninety-nine percent of Americans live in a county with a doctor of optometry. More than 90% of U.S. Medicare beneficiaries live within 15 minutes of a doctor of optometry.
“As optometrists, who are found all over the country and are widely disbursed throughout the country, we may be the only or most convenient doctor our patients see,” Dr. Newsome says.
“We should be, and need to be, included in their health care team to ensure our patients are getting the information that they need,” she says. “I truly believe when people know better, they do better. It is incumbent upon doctors of optometry to expand their knowledge and become patient advocates in the management of their disease.”
Expand your knowledge
Read “Integrating Models of Diabetic Eye Care” in the November/December 2020 edition of AOA Focus.
Access the AOA’s Evidence-based Clinical Practice Guideline: Eye Care of the Patient with Diabetes Mellitus, Second Edition and listen to a podcast.
Educate your community
Find an infographic that you can use to educate your community on the importance of regular, dilated eye exams from a doctor of optometry.
Advocate for patients
Expanding access to health insurance is an important step in providing access to needed eye care services to all patients. Access the AOA’s Action Center to contact your federal lawmakers and agency officials.