New research papers highlight the adverse impact of COVID-19 pandemic on orthoptic clinical practice across the UK and also illustrate the benefits of new University of Liverpool developed tools in helping address the issues around orthoptics service delivery and patient care.
The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way everyone goes about their day-to-day lives; nowhere more so than in relation to our access to and the provision of vital medical services including eye care and assessment.
About two thirds of stroke survivors have vision disability which typically relates to impaired central or peripheral vision, eye movement abnormalities, or visual perceptual defects.
Professor Fiona Rowe of the Vision, Orthoptic and Brain Injury Research Unit at the University says this suspension in delivery is leading to a ‘lack of availability of necessary services’ for patients requiring vision screening and inequitable care provision for stroke survivors with the potential for long-term unmet needs.
The impact of this remotely conducted and reduced delivery of service highlighted the urgent need for change and adaptation within the profession. The timely release of new resources may help this situation. Two new unique tools have been developed and tested for use in tandem by healthcare professionals, carers and non-clinicians. These will help in the fight against COVID-19 impacts on orthoptics service delivery and patient care (in particular in respect to stroke related vision disability, which occurs in about three quarters of stroke survivors.)
VISA, is a Vision Screening Assessment tool for detecting vision disability among stroke survivors by clinicians involved in stroke care who are not specialists in vision problems and lack formal eye training. Where early visual impairment detection occurs, this facilitates prompt referral with fewer false positives and negatives. The VISA screening tool provides a standardised and validated method to screen for visual problems following stroke and may further be of potential use for visual screening in other care settings such as neurorehabilitation.
The impact of vision disability as the result of a stroke can be considerable with vision disability leading to increased rate of personal accidents and falls, social isolation, loss of confidence, impaired mobility, reduced quality of life, increased anxiety and depression – all exacerbated by the current COVID-19 climate.
Some types of vision disability can be easily detected and many affected individuals will report their symptoms. However, most types of vision impairment cannot be easily detected without specific assessment and some individuals do not complain of visual symptoms.
