To celebrate our 40th year, Eyecare Business reached out to our board members and past #EBGameChangers for their thoughts on how eyewear and eye care have changed since our launch in 1986. Here are reflections from 2023 EB Game Changer, Edward S. Bennett, OD, MS.Ed, FAAO, FSLS, of the University of Missouri-St. Louis College of Optometry:
“One of the greatest advancements in the eyecare industry in the last 40 years has been specialty contact lens advancements that have changed the lives of so many thousands of patients who were fortunate to have been fitted with these designs. It actually started almost 40 years ago when the initial corneal topography instrumentation became available. That allowed for corneal assessment in orthokeratology, which was accompanied by more sophisticated designs and a much higher success rate in slowing myopia growth and allowing these individuals to be free of wearing a correction during the day. This was accompanied by myopia control soft lenses that have become quite popular and successful as well, lessening the probability of high myopia complications later in life (ie, retinal detachment, myopic macular degeneration, glaucoma).
"In addition, within the last 20 years scleral lenses have been a godsend to so many keratoconic and other irregular cornea patients who needed rigid lens optics to improve the quality of their visual life but experienced difficulty with the fit or comfort of corneal GP designs. Likewise, moderate-to-severe dry eye patients—who often could not tolerate contact lens wear—have observed a great improvement in their quality of life via scleral lens application.”