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SCEI's Director of Optometric Services, Dr. Ora Esfahani, answers questions regarding the vision benefits of eating healthy! We’ve long heard that we need to eat carrots to protect our eyes. How much truth is there to this? How does that process work? You’ve heard it because carrots are a great source of vitamin A (converted from beta-carotene once ingested), which is necessary to maintain vision and ocular health. Although vitamin A deficiency may lead to blindness in extreme cases, in most...Continue Reading

SCEI's Founding Director, Dr. Rohit Varma, shares some tips for maintaining good eye health. What types of preventative measures can people take to protect their eyes from damage or from loss of vision? There are many things we can do to maintain our eyes healthy. The most important one is to get our eyes checked regularly by an ophthalmologist. Regular vision screening for refractive error and early eye disease may reduce or prevent individuals from experiencing unnecessary vision loss...Continue Reading

SCEI's Director of Optometric Services, Dr. Ora Esfahani, answers questions regarding the consequences of sleeping in your contact lenses. 1. Can you nap in your contact lenses? Napping for a prolonged time period is not recommended while wearing contact lenses, unless you've been prescribed a brand that is approved for overnight wear. A short (20-minute or so) nap should be okay with your contacts, but the best practice is taking them out and storing them in contact lens solutio...Continue Reading

After Lasik surgery in 2005, James Camp, 69, didn’t notice any problem with his eyesight until recently when he found himself struggling to read advertisements on the television. Camp started wearing glasses at the age of seven and later switched to contact lenses in high school. “After noticing my vision problem, I decided to visit the same local eye clinic where I got my Lasik surgery done. Upon v...Continue Reading

Dry eye is a condition in which a person doesn't have enough quality tears to lubricate and nourish the eye. Tears are necessary for maintaining the health of the front surface of the eye and for providing clear vision. Dry eye is a common and often chronic problem, particularly in older adults. As of recently and with widespread computer and smartphone usage, Dry Eye Disease is being diagnosed across a younger population as well as more mature adults. People with dry eyes may experience irritat...Continue Reading

While glaucoma is a leading cause of preventable blindness around the world, medical professionals still do not know how the most common forms of the disease develop. Glaucoma is a progressive condition that causes irreversible damage to the optic nerve, which transmits visual signals to the brain. The condition involves abnormally high pressure of intraocular fluids inside the eye, which can compress the nerves of each eye and lead to vision loss. While this mechanism is relatively well underst...Continue Reading

Technology is helping ophthalmologists diagnose and treat a range of different conditions, from diabetic retinopathy to glaucoma. One technology that shows promise for both diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma is optical coherence tomographic angiography (OCTA). This imaging technique provides a visualization of blood flow within the retina to give a clearer picture of the effects of glaucoma on ganglion cells. The destruction of these cells leads to permanent blindness. Accurate Visualizing of Bl...Continue Reading

Glaucoma is typically associated with older adulthood. However, according to the Genetics Home Reference, published by the United States National Library of Medicine, heredity can increase the risk of developing glaucoma at younger ages. In some cases, congenital structural problems in the eye can become obvious during a infant’s first year. These problems may be due to genetic abnormalities, which also affect other parts of the body. In the case of infants and young children, the disease is ...Continue Reading

According to a June 2019 article published in Forbes Magazine under the sponsorship of the Forbes Technology Council, the artificial intelligence-supported healthcare sector projections for 2025 are nearly $200 billion. Today’s AI-assisted healthcare developments largely center on improving results for patients at lower costs while aligning the interests of physicians, investors and other industry stakeholders. Here are a few of the leading developments that detail current and potential ways i...Continue Reading

A cataract is a clouding of the lens that results in a loss of vision. The chance of developing a cataract increases once a person is 40 year old. Below are some commonly asked questions and answers about cataracts: At what age do people commonly develop cataracts? Although, it is sometimes thought that cataracts are a problem that mostly affect older adults, the reality is they can often affect younger adults as well. Adults can devel...Continue Reading

In the eyes of many Americans, the Fourth of July is a day for parades, barbecues and, of course, fireworks. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's most recent report showed that fireworks caused eight deaths and nearly 13,000 injuries in 2017. Two-thirds of the fireworks injuries treated in emergency rooms happened between mid-June and m...Continue Reading

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness, and it affects approximately 3 million people in the United States. The term refers to a group of conditions in which damage to the optic nerve from intraocular pressure, inflammation, trauma or reduced blood flow causes significant restriction of vision or total loss of sight. At the moment, glaucoma treatment focuses on relievin...Continue Reading

Glaucoma is the second-leading cause of blindness worldwide, and its prevalence is increasing. Because glaucoma is a serious and chronic condition, it is important for patients to have access to reliable care that is effective over the long term. Left untreated, glaucoma can lead to blindness. It is an expensive condition in terms of direct monetary costs as well as indirect costs in the...Continue Reading

While glaucoma typically affects older adults, the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS) states that the disease can occur at any age — even in babies and children. Relatively few children develop glaucoma, with the congenital form of the disease occurring in about one out of every 10,000 births. Approximately one in every 10 cases of pediatric glauco...Continue Reading

In the town of Coupvray, just outside Paris, Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809. His birth would change the course of how blind people everywhere would be educated. Learning to live without sight Braille, a small, sickly son of a harness maker, lost his eyesight as a child due to a horrific accident. At age 3, Braille was playing in his father’s workshop when an awl he was han...Continue Reading

In terms of advancing the medical field, the most valuable work is being conducted by research scientists, educators and physicians employed at large scale nonprofit organizations, universities with a deep commitment to innovation and even smaller private foundations. These groups influence the growth of Convergence in Healthcare and also have a strong influence on innovation in the medi...Continue Reading

1. Sobering statistics According to a 2014 article on the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO)’s website, approximately 42,000 annual emergency medical visits are due to sports-related eye injuries. The National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, joins the AAO in pointing out that every 13 minutes, an emergency room physician in the US treats someon...Continue Reading

The brain’s natural complexity is the primary reason it is difficult to study. Experts contend the largest challenge facing neurosciences is that the basics of the discipline remain largely unknown. Fortunately, academics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other prominent US universities suggest the Convergence in Healthcare movement may hold the key to helping me...Continue Reading

Diabetes can significantly affect your eyesight and the health of your eyes. According to the World Health Organization, diabetes is one of the leading causes of blindness and visual impairment among adults around the world. The National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, states diabetes often leads to or exacerbates retinopathy, macular edema, glaucoma and ...Continue Reading

Since the mid-1970s, the world has been in a state of technology-driven development known as the Information (or Digital) Age, generally characterized by the development of innovative tools to allow people to transmit increasingly large amounts of data and information at faster rates. The Internet is often singled out as the most defining element of the time. Today, computer engineering ...Continue Reading

Amblyopia is decreased sight in one or both eyes due to abnormal development of vision in infancy or childhood. The condition cannot be corrected with prescription lenses. Ophthalmologists estimate that between 2 and 3 percent of all Americans experience amblyopia,. The condition is typically first noticed during infancy and the preschool years. Here are a few basic facts about amblyopi...Continue Reading

In 1949, Sir Harold Ridley, an English ophthalmologist, performed the world’s first successful artificial intraocular lens (IOL) transplant surgery on a patient with cataracts. When he died in 2001, the Daily Telegraph obituary told of the ophthalmic surgeon’s perseverance to revolutionize cataract surgery and his undeterred work toward his goal. Today, the IOL procedure is com...Continue Reading

In August 2018, the journal Nature Medicine published a paper describing exciting new research on applications of artificial intelligence (AI) to eye care. The research was conducted by staff members of Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and UCL, a subsidiary of Google’s DeepMind. The researchers used deep learning to develop an algorithm-focused software program. The program was able ...Continue Reading

In 2016, a white paper "Convergence: The Future of Health" was published by faculty members from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to draw attention to the value and importance of the Convergence in Healthcare movement. In the 73-page report, Convergence in Healthcare is defined as an integrative approach to scientific research that incorporates concepts from the life and p...Continue Reading

In the report "Convergence: The Future of Health," academics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other top U.S. universities collaborated to outline the potential impact of the Convergence in Healthcare movement. In this white paper, Convergence in Healthcare is defined as the intersection of the life sciences, physical sciences, chemistry, mathematics, computing an...Continue Reading

Based on data collected by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a part of the National Institutes of Health, an American’s lifetime risk of developing cancer at any site in the body is almost 40 percent. The NCI estimates that in 2018, more than 1.7 million cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and more than 600,000 people will lose their lives to the disease. With the...Continue Reading

In the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-sponsored report "Convergence: The Future of Health," American academic leaders outlined the forthcoming impact of the Convergence in Healthcare revolution on the United States healthcare industry. Best defined as an intersectional approach to research between members of the life science, physical science, mathematics, computing and chemistry ...Continue Reading

According to a growing number of scientists and academics, the third revolution in life sciences is taking shape in the form of Convergence in Healthcare, a movement that calls for the integration of the mathematics, engineering, computing, physical sciences and life sciences disciplines. Convergence in Healthcare seeks to combine the work of experts from these fields to produce more coh...Continue Reading

Ophthalmologists check the health and general condition of patients’ eyes and conduct diagnostic tests to determine whether any disease is present. Early detection and treatment give the patient the best possible chance to overcome eye problems and diseases and retain clear, healthy sight. Depending upon a patient’s circumstances, age and particular concerns, an ophthalmologist may c...Continue Reading

To say the modern American healthcare system is the subject of disagreement and debate is an understatement. When contemplating this subject, many people focus on the partisan disagreements between lawmakers in Washington, D.C. However, maybe the biggest problem with U.S. healthcare lies in a single, simple truth: healthcare in the United States grows more expensive for Americans every y...Continue Reading