August 2021 – Adela Garcia – A routine eye test? The technology helping us look after our general health through the eyes.

Most of us take for granted our sight and only book an eye test when we struggle with vision. What we don’t realise is that through a routine eye examination we can detect a number of eye and general health diseases that otherwise go unnoticed until it’s almost too late; from diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, glaucoma to brain tumours and strokes. We will look into the different technology used in your high street Optician during a standard or enhanced sight test and how different machines give us different information about the patients’ general and eye health.

Adela Garcia
I am a Dispensing Optician and Retail Director in a local Specsavers Opticians. I have worked in optics for 16 years and I am a fellow of the British Dispensing Opticians. My day to day job involves a lot of problem solving, from providing vision aids to patients with low vision, children and adults with learning difficulties, patients with facial disfigurement and dementia , to providing more common solutions to customers with presbyopia, myopia, astigmatism and general eye conditions. I do not diagnose eye diseases or prescribe , but help carry out tests to diagnose and provide optical solutions after diagnosis. As part of the NHS Enhance Optical Services it is also my job to advice and refer those that come to us with minor eye care conditions and DVLA tests.

Being an Optician in the UK means we have to commit to follow guidelines established by the General Optical Council and the NHS ,and to obtain a certain amount of points per year in advanced education to ensure we are up to date with all the new technology and changes in the world of optics, making this career ever changing and very rewarding.