OLYMPIC EYE CARE

Caring for the health and welfare of athletes and their support teams has become an important part of organising the Olympic Games. Providing eye care services is now an important part of this provision and in this respect, London 2012 set new standards, the XXXVII UKISCRS Congress in Manchester heard.

Prof David Thomson, City University, London, gave a detailed presentation on the dedicated eye clinic he organised and led with Dr Penny D’Ath (City University) and Dr Clare Wilson (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) during the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics.

The London 2012 Eye Clinic combined a multi-disciplinary team of optometrists, ophthalmologists, contact lens opticians and dispensing opticians with state-of-theart instrumentation to provide the highest level of eye care and to showcase UK healthcare, he explained, adding that there was a “huge amount of work involved” in planning, organising and running the service.

Facilities

The purpose-built medical polyclinic allocated five rooms to the eye clinic. Most of the equipment was top of the range and was provided on free loan or at a very low cost from the major suppliers, as were the spectacles and contact lenses. “The facilities were world class at London 2012. Good vision is obviously important in many sports, so the eye clinic has been an important part of the health services offered at certainly the last three games, and probably before then though there is very little in the way of records on that,” he told the congress, adding that the London experience was fully documented to provide a legacy for future organisers of such clinics at other events.

The clinic provided a full range of completely free-of-charge eye care. Everyone who attended the clinic was given a full eye examination, which included refraction, binocular vision assessment, fundus imaging, OCT, visual fields, tonometry and an ophthalmological assessment if required. A wide range of spectacles, contact lenses and low vision aids were dispensed. All the staff worked on a voluntary basis and required four days training and a minimum of 10 days availability to work during the games. The clinic was open from 7am to 11pm to accommodate the training and competitive schedules of the games.

“Despite this, we had over 200 optometrists, dispensing opticians and ophthalmologists volunteer. The challenge was reducing the numbers and selecting the personnel needed, which for the Olympics turned out to be 16 optometrists, 10 dispensing opticians and eight ophthalmologists. For the Paralympics we had eight optometrists, six dispensing opticians and six ophthalmologists,” Prof Thomson commented.

Services provided

The eye clinic saw a total of 1,406 patients, representing some 154 countries during the period of the Olympic Games. A total of 870 patients representing 102 countries were seen by the clinic during the period of the Paralympic Games. “More than 90 per cent of patients at both games attended for a full eye examination and 973 pairs of spectacles and 50 pairs of contact lenses were dispensed during the Olympics, while 749 pairs of spectacles and 14 pairs of contact lenses were dispensed during the Paralympics,” Prof Thomson reported.

“Many of those we examined did not have access to the services that we could provide and we were able to make a significant improvement to the vision of many of them by providing a proper refractive correction,” he commented. However, only one fifth – approximately 20 per cent – of those seen during the Olympics were athletes; the remaining 80 per cent were members of the support teams.

“From a professional point of view, the Paralympics were more challenging as around 20 per cent of the competitors were visually impaired, including some with eye conditions rarely seen in the UK,” said Prof Thomson. It was immensely rewarding to be able to help some of them with refractive correction, low vision aids and to provide expert ophthalmological advice.

In addition to providing routine eye care, the clinic was responsible for managing any acute conditions and eye injuries. “There were a variety of abrasions but no significant eye injuries during the games,” Prof Thomson told the congress. A variety of eye conditions were detected by the screening with glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy being the most common reason for referral to the ophthalmologists in the clinic.

Prof Thomson said the predictions for staffing for the clinic worked out well: “The only change we would have made would have been to have had a few orthoptists on board as we did have some quite complex binocular vision problems, in particular at the Paralympics, and we could have done with some more dispensing opticians as well.” “In summary, it was a fantastic experience. We made a great team and it was an experience that most of those involved considered to be a highlight of their professional careers,” he concluded.