Domiciliary eye care: what you need to do domiciliary

OT has published a series of four video skills guides focused on providing domiciliary eye care. These guides aim to demystify and educate viewers about key aspects of domiciliary eye care, from the kit you require in order to perform sight tests, to communication tips, adapting for bedbound patients, and the legal requirements of this mode of practice.

In this skills guide video, domiciliary optometrist at OutsideClinic, Faye Woodham, discusses the equipment, all small enough to fit in a bag, that she uses when testing in a patient’s home.

Woodham’s kit bag includes a range of equipment, including: a condensed trial set, a trial frame, an iPad with a test chart on, a portable fundus camera that can be connected to the optometrist’s tablet, a retinoscope, an ophthalmoscope, a portable perimeter, a handheld slit lamp, a confrontation stick, red and green googles, and magnifiers.

Speaking about magnifiers, Woodham explains: “We use a lot of magnifiers with our patients. Because we have an older patient demographic, they are more likely to have visual issues, and magnifiers are great – a lot of our patients won’t want referring for problems, they’d rather manage with their vision as it is. A magnifier is a really useful tool to be able to show them what their vision could be.”

The optometrist’s kit bag also features flip cards to aid communication with patients who are hearing impaired, as well as matching cards to aid communication with patients who have learning difficulties or where a language barrier may prove difficult.

OT would like to thank OutsideClinic