Un­less you have sig­nif­i­cant vi­sion prob­lems, chances are you take your eye­sight for grant­ed. You may not give a lot of thought to what life is like for those with vi­su­al im­pair­ments. How­ev­er, to­day, World Sight Day gives us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to adopt a new way of think­ing. This an­nu­al event fo­cus­es on pre­vent­ing blind­ness through good eye care, and it al­so pro­vides an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to sup­port peo­ple who have suf­fered vi­sion loss.

The Glob­al Eye Health Cri­sis – Key Facts

• 39 mil­lion peo­ple are be­lieved to be blind glob­al­ly as of 2020.

• This is set to in­crease to 115 mil­lion peo­ple in 2050.

• 2.2 bil­lion peo­ple are es­ti­mat­ed to live with a vi­sion im­pair­ment of some de­scrip­tion glob­al­ly.

• Around 1 bil­lion of these cas­es could have been pre­vent­ed or have yet to be ad­dressed.

(The 2.2bn fig­ure was es­ti­mat­ed by the WHO in 2019 based on epi­demi­o­log­i­cal da­ta re­port­ed by Fricke et al. (2018) in the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Oph­thal­mol­o­gy and the re­port by Bourne et al pub­lished in the Lancet (2017). The 2020 es­ti­mates for Glob­al Vi­sion Im­pair­ment and Blind­ness come from the The In­ter­na­tion­al Agency for the Pre­ven­tion of Blind­ness (IAPD At­las)

What is World Sight Day?

World Sight Day is an an­nu­al event host­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Agency for the Pre­ven­tion of Blind­ness (IAPB) in co­op­er­a­tion with the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) that high­lights the im­por­tance of eye health. It’s a time to draw at­ten­tion to eye­sight-re­lat­ed is­sues and ad­vo­cate for uni­ver­sal ac­cess to vi­sion care. A big part of this event in­volves ed­u­cat­ing peo­ple about pre­ventable blind­ness and ways to en­sure every­one has the care they de­serve.

By work­ing to­geth­er, we can all play a role in com­bat­ing the glob­al eye health cri­sis. World Sight Day is a re­minder to you, to love your eyes.

What can YOU do to ob­serve

World Sight Day?

To ob­serve World Sight Day, you can start by mak­ing a pledge to sched­ule an eye ex­am at the Courts Op­ti­cal branch clos­est to you. If it’s been a while since you’ve had your vi­sion checked, this is the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to do it.

Here are some oth­er ways you can mark the event:

• Ask your­self - how you can pro­tect your eyes and keep them healthy?

• En­cour­age friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers to have their eyes test­ed as well.

• Ed­u­cate your­self on eye health, vi­sion, and prop­er eye care.

• Do­nate eye­glass­es to oth­ers in need or be part of such char­i­ty.

• Sign up to vol­un­teer with those who are blind or vi­su­al­ly im­paired.

• Make your Pledge and post about World Sight Day on so­cial me­dia us­ing the hash­tag #court­sop­ti­cal #LoveY­ourEyes.

@ Courts Op­ti­cal, We be­lieve - Eye ex­ams aren’t just about vi­sion. They’re about your health.

What does your com­pre­hen­sive eye

ex­am @ Courts Op­ti­cal look like?

Eye Health Assess­ment

We’ll give you a com­pre­hen­sive eye health as­sess­ment, en­sur­ing a com­plete check on the health of your eyes. This helps us iden­ti­fy eye con­di­tions such as dry eyes, cataracts, glau­co­ma and many oth­ers.

1) Your Sight Test

Our Op­tometrists will car­ry out spe­cif­ic eye tests so we can get a bet­ter as­sess­ment of your vi­sion. Some of these tests in­volve us­ing the au­to re­frac­tor (AR). The vi­su­al field ma­chine is used to as­sess the ex­tent of your pe­riph­er­al vi­sion while look­ing straight ahead. For ex­am­ple, we will re­fer you to get a Vi­su­al Field Test (VFT) if there are any clin­i­cal find­ings of Glau­co­ma af­ter your com­pre­hen­sive eye ex­am.

2) Per­son­al Rec­om­men­da­tion

At the end of your eye test, our Op­tometrists will ex­plain the de­tails of your clin­i­cal find­ings in sim­ple terms as well as the rel­e­vant rec­om­men­da­tions. For ex­am­ple, in sus­pi­cious cas­es of eye dis­eases out­side the scope of our Op­tometrists, we will re­fer you to our oph­thal­mol­o­gist.

Med­ical con­di­tions that can be de­ter­mined dur­ing an eye ex­am

Your eyes are win­dows to the live ac­tion of blood ves­sels, nerves and con­nec­tive tis­sues through­out your body. Prob­lems spot­ted in the eye are of­ten the first signs of dis­ease lurk­ing else­where.

• An eye test can de­tect un­der­ly­ing health prob­lems that you aren’t aware of, such as Di­a­betes, High Blood Pres­sure, Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis, Aneurysm, Thy­roid dis­ease, Rheuma­toid arthri­tis, Sick­le cell dis­ease as well as brain tu­mours that present with eye signs.

• An eye test will al­so de­tect if your vi­sion is be­low the ex­pect­ed stan­dards of vi­sion and can be im­proved by cor­rec­tive eye wear.

• You may be see­ing less clear­ly and may not re­alise your vi­sion can be im­proved with the cor­rect eye­wear.

Our Pledge @ Courts Op­ti­cal

World Sight Day serves as a re­minder about the im­por­tance of eye health, which af­fects ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment, and over­all qual­i­ty of life. More than 2 bil­lion peo­ple world­wide suf­fer from vi­sion-re­lat­ed prob­lems, and many of these cas­es could have been pre­vent­ed with prop­er eye care. That’s why it’s worth do­ing your part to raise aware­ness about the glob­al eye health cri­sis and sup­port those with lim­it­ed vi­sion.

We at Courts Op­ti­cal are here to help. We have part­nered with Pre­miere Eye Spe­cial­ist. You can get your eye surgery and pay lat­er with Courts Ready Fi­nance. We al­so of­fer out­reach ser­vices in the form of Vi­sion Screen­ing brought straight to your or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Take prop­er care of your­self.

Test your eyes to­day @ Courts Op­ti­cal.

Please vis­it www.court­sop­ti­cal.com

to book your ap­point­ment to­day.