The impact of obstructive sleep apnoea monitoring functionality on smartwatches: a new frontier for ophthalmologists

Dawn of a new era in wearable technology? Smartwatches have really stepped up their game and have evolved from telling time to keeping an eye on our health. In February 2024, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave...

Robotic assisted orbital surgery (RAOS) – a novel approach to orbital malignancy surgery

Robotic technology in ENT surgery has been used in certain areas of head and neck cancer care but, in this article, we hear of an exciting development from the team at Guy’s & St Thomas’. Advances in surgical robotic technology...

Part 2: the Arclight Device: frugal imaging for eyecare

In this three-part series (Click here for Part 1) Andrew Blaikie and his team explore the role and application of the Arclight Device in Imaging of the Eye. There are many different types of ophthalmic imaging tools; from simply taking...

My top five: Trinkets of fact or fiction

Trinkets of adult wisdom are often delivered to children alongside warnings of catastrophic outcomes. In this article we present five ‘facts’ about eye health and vision and ask the question: to what extent are these ideas backed up by literature?...

Bionic eyes: deciphering the neural circuitry of vision restoration

As the boundaries between technology and biology blur, retinal prosthetics, often dubbed ‘bionic eyes’, present a ground-breaking paradigm shift in addressing blindness. This article delves into the captivating scientific intricacies of these neural interfaces, exploring their mechanisms of action, current...

WHO SPECS 2030: a global initiative to strengthen refractive error services

Globally, it is estimated that only around one-third of people with vision impairment due to refractive error have received access to a quality pair of spectacles [1]. In recognition that uncorrected refractive error is the leading cause of vision impairment...

Insights on medical AI for ophthalmology: an update on current perspectives

Artificial intelligence (AI) has immense promise for revolutionising medical practice. Generative AI is a form of AI in which algorithms are trained on datasets that can be used to generate new content, such as text, images or video based on...

Are social media promoting ocular protection in the community?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many countries worldwide introduced lockdown measures to control infection, causing people to spend more time at home. This resulted in reports of increasing incidences of do-it-yourself (DIY)-related trauma. When the Covid-19 pandemic started in December 2019,...

The Escape Room and gamification of ophthalmology teaching

Recently, there has been an interesting development in medical education and its ‘gamification’. Educators are constantly looking for new ways to engage their students by adding a friendly element of competition, as evidenced by the great success of online education...

Part 1: The Arclight Project – Frugal tech for sight

Click here for Part 2 on this topic. The Arclight Project is a mix of frugal design, manufacturing, distribution, teaching, research, and advocacy, all wrapped up in a social enterprise based at the University of St Andrews. The project is...

Virtual ophthalmic conferences: learnings from the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic was the catalyst for a number of paradigm shifts in numerous industries. The demand for proxies that follow social distancing measures created a hotbed for digital solutions and transitioned these to social convention. In the aftermath, the...

The All Eyes Foundation

At its core, All Eyes Foundation (AEF) wishes to help bring vision back to Iraq, and it intends to do this through ophthalmic subspecialty training, mentoring and infrastructure development. Based in Najaf, just over 100 miles south of Baghdad, the...