AOA 2023: 12 new treatments optometrists should know about

Mile Brujic, OD, FAAO, gives key takeaways of his presentation, "12 new treatments in eye care that you need to know about," which he presented during the 2023 AOA Optometry's Meeting in Washington, DC.

Video Transcript

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

Mile Brujic, OD, FAAO:

Hi, I'm Dr. Mile Brujic and I'm a partner of a 4-location practice in Northwest Ohio, Premier Vision Group. And I've had the good fortune and opportunity to be asked to lecture at this year's Optometry's Meeting in Washington, DC. And one of the courses that I'm giving is something referred to as, "12 new treatments in eye care."

This is one of my favorite courses to give, and this is probably the most sought-after course that I provide because it's constantly evolving. And literally, in three months from now, if I give the same course, it will be fundamentally different, because things in eye care are changing so rapidly, so fast.

So again, this is a quick shot out of the gate, we're talking about new technologies, but specifically relating them to where we are right now with technologies and what we actually currently have, and where these new technologies are building. There are things like new diagnostics in dry eye disease, new therapeutics in glaucoma, new ways to measure intraocular pressure, new ways to measure visual field testing.

You know, there are several devices now that are available as sort of a virtual reality visual field, and it's changing the way we're able to provide care for these patients. For the first time for one of my Parkinson's patients, we now have a visual field on file; we could never put her in the traditional Humphrey bowl. But now we were able to do that because the device is actually on her head. So it's changing the way we function in our practices, but it's also changing the way we deliver care to patients.

I think it's critically important for us clinically, to understand these new treatments, and also diagnostics because I think it will fundamentally change the way that we care for patients. But just like everything, every single new component that we bring to the practice sometimes gets a little bit difficult as to how to incorporate those in in our own offices because our settings are so different. So we dive into some of the minutia around that and I share with you as well too how some of these treatments are actually incorporated into our practice as well. And I think that's good for patient care, just because at the end of the day, we're providing new diagnostic and therapeutic regimens that first and foremost, we didn't have a month, 3 months, 6 months ago, and we can actively incorporate those into clinical practice, ultimately for the same goal that we all have when treating patients, which is better clinical outcomes.