CORE Publishes Summaries of the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) Lifestyle Reports

Tuesday, November 7 2023 | 09 h 03 min | News

The Centre for Ocular Research & Education (CORE) has published a resource collection to promote greater understanding among the global eye care community and their patients. Issue 74 of Contact Lens Update expands on the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) Lifestyle Reports that were published earlier this year. The issue is available by visiting ContactLensUpdate.com.

“Multiple factors may affect the patient sitting in front of you. The World Health Organization has recognized that eye problems can be a result of our lifestyle choices,” said Lyndon Jones, director of CORE and a member of the TFOS Board of Directors. “The TFOS Lifestyle Workshop was created to address how different aspects of our modern lifestyles can affect the health of the ocular surface. The broad range of reports address topics including the impact of contact lenses, the type of eye makeup they are wearing, to the state of their mental health. Our work to increase practitioner awareness of these issues will improve patients’ lives.”

The TFOS Lifestyle Reports also provides information on digital eye strain and digital device use, and discusses how food, beverages, and elective procedures can affect the integrity of the ocular surface.

Jennifer Craig, professor at the University of Auckland and Chair of the TFOS Lifestyle Workshop, provides an introduction to the reports in the issue’s editorial. Her overview summarizes some of the key clinical findings from the eight topic reports, which span contact lenses, cosmetics, the digital environment, elective medications and procedures, environmental conditions, lifestyle challenges, nutrition, and societal challenges. The summary helps practitioners narrow down important points of discussion that could be affecting the health of their patient’s ocular surface. 

The feature article features a series of eight informative infographics that condense the TFOS findings into an easily accessible visual format. This provides eye care practitioners with a synopsis of the important findings from each report, before they delve into the full details found within the comprehensive reports.

This issue’s clinical insight is a two-page patient handout provides take-home messages from each of the TFOS Lifestyle Reports. This serves as a way for practitioners to open the conversation into how lifestyle impacts our eyes and empowers patients to take a proactive role in managing the health of their ocular surface.

Himal Kandel, a Kornhauser Research Fellow at the Save Sight Institute, The University of Sydney, contributes the conference highlight. First presented as a poster at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology 2023 annual meeting, his study describes use of an international registry to examine factors that affect the quality of life in people with different types of dry eye disease and corneal neuropathic pain. 

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