Optometry is a healthcare profession focused on eye and vision care. Optometrists are primary healthcare practitioners of the eye who provide comprehensive eye exams, detect diseases, manage vision conditions, and prescribe corrective lenses or vision therapy. The profession began over 100 years ago with the development of vision science, optics, and optical instruments. Today, optometrists utilize their knowledge of ocular science, disease diagnosis, visual rehabilitation and more to care for patients' eye health and vision needs.

1. Ashwini Rathod
WORLD OPTOMETRY DAY
23 MARCH 2020

2. “……..the eye is the window of the body through which
it feels its way and enjoy the beauty of the world.
Owing to the eye the soul is content to stay in its bodily
prison, for without it such bodily prison is torture.”
Leonardo da vinci -
(1452-1519)

3. WHAT IS OPTOMETRY ?
• Optometry is defined by the World Council of
Optometry (WCO) as follows:
• “Optometry is a healthcare profession that is
autonomous, educated, and regulated
(licensed/registered), and optometrists are the primary
healthcare practitioners of the eye and visual system
who provide comprehensive eye and vision care, which
includes refraction and dispensing, detection/diagnosis
and management of disease in the eye and the
rehabilitation of condition of the visual system.”

4. WORD OPTOMETRY
• It comes from Greek Word
• Opsis + Metron
( Opsis means view and Metron means
rule/measurement)
• The root word opto derived from the greek word
opthalmus which means eye.

5. HISTORY
• “Those who don’t know history will repeat past mistakes”
• Optometry began about 100 years ago when the first optometry
licensure laws were passed in US.
• Optometry began with the pronouncement “Let there be light.”
• Optometric history is tied to the development of:
• Vision Science
• Optics, Optical aids
• Optical instruments, imaging techniques
• Other eye care professions

6. ORIGIN
Tradesmen who entered the respective professions
• Optometry :- they had the tools to work on spectacles
• Medicine :- they had the equipment with which early
surgeries could be done.
• Refracting opticians became known as optometrists

8. WHO IS AN OPTOMETRIST ?
• Optometrists are the primary healthcare practitioners of
the eye and visual system who provide comprehensive
eye and vision care
 Refracting and dispensing
 Detection/diagnosis and management of disease in the
eye
 Rehabilitation of conditions of the visual system

10. WHAT DOES AN OPTOMETRIST DO ?
• Refraction
• Contact lens
• Orthoptics
• Low vision
• Perimetry
• Elctrophysiological test
• Vision therapy
• Visual rehabilitation

11. WHAT TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE DOES
AN OPTOMETRISTS HAVE..?
• Basic science
• Ocular science and applied optics
• Ocular disease, ocular pharmacology
• Visual science
• Contact lens, low vision, binocular single vision
• Ophthalmic dispensing
• Community science ad research

12. WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
DEFINES OPTOMETRY AS :
• An independent primary health-care profession.
• Optometrists are the primary healthcare practitioners of
the eye and visual system. They provide
comprehensive eye and vision care – which includes
refraction, dispensing, the detection/diagnosis and
management of diseases in the eye, and the
rehabilitation of conditions of the visual system.