Optometry is the branch of the healthcare that includes the treatment of various eye diseases and diagnosis of defects or abnormalities in visual systems.

An optometrist is the one who checks a man’s vision and prescribes the glasses to him to correct his vision. He helps the patient by providing the primary health care in terms of eyes and visual system. An optometrist is the one who is authorized to prescribe a patient vision correcting glasses when he finds out that a person has weak vision or sight.

All in all, professional services optometrist can provide the entire eye care facilities. 

Difference Between Optometrist, Ophthalmologist, And Optician

An optometrist is trained for primary check-ups for vision, visual defects, and health problems. Optometrists can prescribe eyeglasses and contact lenses, offer treatment for common eye problems such as eye infections and also certain chronic eye diseases.

Ophthalmologists, on the other hand, specializes in vision and eye care. They diagnose disease and can perform eye surgery after completing training and education and acquiring a license to treat it. An ophthalmologist can also prescribe eyeglass and contact lenses. As they are medical doctors, they can even recognize other health problems which are not directly related to the eye. 

An optician is an essential part of an eye care team. They use different types of equipment to fit, adjust eyewear, contact lenses and low vision aids. They are more involved in customer services and works for optometrists that practice in more of a medical setting.

Optometric Services

An optometrist’s job includes an array of eye care services, including:

Eye Examination:

Examination of eyes for vision and health problems is a part of the professional services optometrist. The examination includes health check-up of eyes etc.

Diagnose and Treatment:

Diagnosing various eye disorders and diseases like cataract, glaucoma, far-sightedness, near-sightedness, etc.

Providing various eyes cares:

Professional services optometrist provides various eye care services like emergency treatment for victims who encountered eye accidents, pre-operation, and post-operation care, etc.

Work with People from Different Fields:

Professional services optometrist takes care of the vision of pilots, athletes who need to improve vision performance because their job demands the same. They also work with parents and teacher to help kids with vision impairment and train them to adjust with new eye care techniques and also organize eye care programs from time after time.

Prescribing Glasses or Another Eye Care:

These are prescribed to people who are involved in working on the computer for most of the day, hunting, shooting, playing piano, and other fields that require constant use of the eyes which leads to vision loss.

Prescribing medicines:

Professional services optometrists can offer, prescribing licensed medicine to patients who are facing problems with their eyes. However, they are not authorized to prescribe very strong dose medicines or drugs that are meant to be taken by injecting.

Services as Optometrists to the Society

Along with various medical services, optometrists are expected to provide services to the community and society as a whole.

In 1999, World Health Organization (WHO) and International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) jointly launched a program named “Vision 2020: A ‘Right to Sight’” to prevent avoidable blindness. Optometrists participate actively in such awareness programs to raise awareness, by focusing on certain diseases that can lead to blindness. Vision 2020 saw success and made a huge difference in the eye health sector.

When you ever feel that the vision or sight of your eyes has become weak then it is the optometrist that you need to visit. He is the one who can tell whether you have weak eyesight or not. If he finds that you really have a bad sight, then he will check that a lens of how much focal length should be prescribed to you to correct the sight or vision of your eyes. Academic optometrist teams also visit schools and communities occasionally to raise awareness, conducting campaigns, and sometimes offering free eye check-ups and prescribing glasses and other corrective measures.

To conclude, if you want to maintain a healthy vision, then opting for professional services optometrist can be very fruitful.