So you have had an eye test have you? Not like this!! Optique Eye & Ear Care offer the most in depth (Literally!!) eye examination in all of Northern Ireland and Ireland. My name is Shane, I am one of the Optometrists here at Optique and I thought Id give you some info about the developments happening in the practice. The Spectralis OCT or Ocular Coherence Tomographer is an instrument that Eyecare Professionals use to create an image of the many different layers at the back of your eye. It uses infra red light (which the human eye cannot see) so there is no flash during the test. The light then enters the eye through the pupil and hits the first layer at the back of your eye. Some of this light is reflected back and some travels a little further into the layers at the back. Every so often as the light moves further through the layers at the back of the eye a little portion gets reflected back. The machine then picks up all these little reflected portions of light as they return and computes the data to produce an image which shows all the layers of the back of your eye. It picks up every layer all the way back to the delicate blood vessels called the Choriocapillaris that supply your retina with nutrients. What this means is that we can now find out what is underneath your retina! The scans take approximately 5 minutes in total and are stress and pain free as there is no flash involved. Also, Any patient of any age can have an OCT scan done. What is underneath my retina? You may have had a fundus photograph taken which looks a little like this This is a picture of the back of an eye showing the Optic Nerve Head, Retinal Blood Vessels and Macula among other things. Now if you imagine this is the first page in a book, a very detailed book. If you took the book and flicked the first page over you can then see what is lurking underneath on page two and repeat and repeat until the book is done. This machine does this; it allows us to view every page in very fine detail instead of just the first page, or as we can now call it, the fundus. That’s where this machines true power lies; it can pick up problems like very small pieces of debris, fluid, traction (and even empty spaces!!) within your retina. What is even better again is that it can pick these issues up very much sooner than has been ever been possible with the standard techniques used at present. There are thousands of uses for these scans but common conditions that we can detect, monitor and assess include Dry and Wet Age Related Macular Degeneration, Diabetes and Glaucoma. For those with a family history of glaucoma or who aren’t diagnosed with glaucoma but have high Intra Ocular Pressures an OCT is a tremendous tool to help pick up on the first signs of glaucoma. Research with the Heidelberg Spectralis OCT has shown it can pick up glaucomatous changes approximately 10 years sooner than the current standard routine tests used at present. Right, So how will this help? Well, if we can pick these issues up sooner, we can get you seen and treated by the right health professional sooner and if the condition being treated needs to be monitored we are right here in a very convenient location for you to pop in and have a scan done at your leisure. The scan results can then be handed to yourself or emailed straight to your health professional.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:00:01 +0000
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