Orthoptist

Overview

Who is Orthoptist?

Orthoptist are the one who diagnose eye abnormalities of patients of all ages, treat the vision problems, checking symptoms of disease, injury or visual defects. Orthoptist also look for the visual system disorders such as eye movement impairments and binocular vision, treat the nerves that serve those muscles or imbalances of the muscles of the eye. Patients have visual impairments like have amblyopia called lazy eye or strabismus known as cross-eye, orthoptist treat their vision problems that arise from head injuries or strokes. Using procedures and diagnostic instruments orthoptist have treatments which often include temporarily covering one eye with a patch or exercising eye muscles. Orthoptist mainly work with children has vision problems are usually present and noticed in childhood. Orthoptists usually work under the supervision of ophthalmologists. Orthoptist work in private doctors' offices, hospitals, clinics and medical centers, education and training department.

Typical day at work

What does Orthoptist do?

An orthoptist is a professional who works in the treatment of disorders related to the visual system, the binocular vision of the individual, and the impairment related to eye movements. Their work is to examine the individuals to understand their problems related to the eyes, eye movements, and the functional visibility of the eyes of the individual. They also diagnose the problems, the disorders, and the conditions for them. The orthoptist also performs the diagnostic based tests and measurements such as testing the color vision of the individual, the motor testing, and the visual accuracy testing of the individual. They also provide the individuals with non-surgical support and interventions like providing the corrective lenses, providing cleansing eyes, drops, providing patches, etc. Their non-surgical treatment plans are for the ones who do not have severe conditions or the requirement of a surgeon.

The roles and responsibilities includes:

• Taking case histories from patients
• To observe and checking patients’ vision
• To make use of specialist equipment
• Referring patients to doctors for surgery or specialist treatment.
• To treat vision problems with devices such as specialist glasses or patches.
• Producing treatment plans and to diagnose sight problems
• Work and coordinate with nursing and medical staff
• To keep updated with new techniques and developments
• Providing information to patients about diagnoses and treatment
• Advising about magnification and lighting strategies for patients with low vision
• To run clinics for issues such as glaucoma, strokes and low vision.
• To support rehabilitation or monitoring long-term conditions
• To assess the vision of small children and babies.

Abilities & aptitude needed

What are the skills, abilities & aptitude needed to become Orthoptist?

To become a orthoptist an individual must have skills and abilities like adaptability, good communication skills, interpersonal skills, able to explain treatment to patients, organizational skills, team working skills, self-motivation, maturity, patience, confidence, resilience, diplomatic, attention to detail, speaking , critical thinking, active listening, social perceptiveness, writing, reading comprehension, coordination, instructing, service orientation, complex problem solving, Judgment and decision making, active learning, monitoring

Courses

Which course I can pursue?