Paediatric practice in the spotlight

Optometry Today, in partnership with the AOP, has hosted its first Paediatrics Day.

The day of online continuing professional development (CPD), held on Sunday (21 April), sought to enable practitioners to consolidate their knowledge and effectively manage children in clinical practice.

The online event saw more than 2800 attendees across the five sessions combined.

The first session of the day, Paediatrics made easy, saw specialist paediatric optometrist, Tania Constable, delve into age-appropriate vision testing and techniques to assess visual function. Constable also addressed normative values for vision and refractive error, and provided a guide on prescribing for children.

The second session of the day, led by Richard Edwards, professional adviser to the Optical Consumer Complaints Service, discussed paediatric complaints through anonymised and redacted case studies.

In the third session, Minor issues in eye care – clinical, ethical and regulatory scenarios involving children, the AOP’s head of clinical and regulatory, Henry Leonard, covered the management of common scenarios encountered when examining children in practice.

Romesh Angunawela, consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfield’s Eye Hospital as well as the director and co-founder of OCL Vision, led a webinar on the latest thinking around the management and treatment of keratoconus.

The day was brought to a close by Lorcan Butler, dispensing optician and optometrist with The Brain Tumour Charity, who discussed the four main neuro-optometric paediatric presentations in practice, comparing these with adult presentations.

Ava Williams, AOP events manager, commented: “It was fantastic to see so many AOP members participate in our first ever Paediatrics Day event on Sunday 21 April. We were joined by a range of experts who shared their knowledge to allow our members to gain further insight on how to manage children in clinical practice.”

Recordings of the webinars can be re-watched on the OT website.