AAOpt 2022: The ABCs and 123s of pediatric eye exams

Michelle Buckland, OD, MS, FAAO,associate professor of clinical optometry at The Ohio State University College of Optometry, speaks with Optometry Times®' Kassi Jackson on highlights from her discussion titled, "Pediatric eye exams: the ABCs and 123s," which she presented during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry (AAOpt) annual meeting in San Diego.

Editor's note: This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Jackson:

Hi, everyone. I'm Kassi Jackson with Optometry Times and I'm joined today by Dr. Michelle Buckland, associate professor of clinical optometry at The Ohio State University College of Optometry.

She's here to share highlights from her discussion titled, "Pediatric eye exams: the ABCs and the 123s," which she is presenting during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry meeting this year in San Diego. Thank you for being here, Dr. Buckland.

Buckland:

Thank you for having me.

Jackson:

Would you please share with us the key takeaways from your presentation?

Buckland:

Sure. So as the title said, this presentation is about young pediatric eye exams. And I think when patients are those preschool, toddler, and infant ages, people can be a little intimidated by the fact you can't give a subjective refraction; they can't tell you exactly what they're seeing.

So my goal for this presentation is really to show optometrists that just by making some modifications with some testing, we can see these young patients so they can learn those common techniques. And then I hope that they'll be able to implement them in their practices to see these patients.

Jackson:

Wonderful. And you just kind of alluded to it. But why is this so important for optometrists to discuss?

Buckland:

I think it's really important for optometrist, one: to show that we are primary eye care providers that we can see patients of all ages. I also think it's important because the majority of pediatric vision loss is due to something that's preventable. So if we see these pediatric patients earlier, we're going to have a better outcome if we have early intervention for their vision loss, such as amblyopia, or high refractive errors.

Jackson:

Great. Yeah. So digging a little bit deeper into that, what does this mean for patient care?

Buckland:

I think it's important also that families realize you don't have to be school aged to have an eye exam. You know, I think that's a common, in my opinion, misperception...

The InfantSEE program has been around for many years, we can see these young patients. So, you know, that education for the general public and families, again, saying we can do eye exams, and we just have to do them in different ways.

But really, the bulk of the core of the exam is the same as any adult exam. We're looking at can the patient see? Are the eyes working together? Are the eyes healthy? And do we need to make any interventions to improve any of those things?

Jackson:

Great. Well, Dr. Buckland, thank you for your time today.

Buckland:

Oh, thanks for having me.