President and founder of IRIS The Visual Group, Dr. Francis Jean, died suddenly yesterday, July 17, in Jasper, Alberta, at the age of 56. Dr. Jean experienced discomfort while cycling in the IRIS Challenge, an activity he created to raise funds for cancer research.

 

In a press release, IRIS officials, naturally in a state of shock, expressed great sadness, describing Dr. Jean as an exceptional leader with a big heart, a passion for life, and remarkable generosity. “Thanks to him, IRIS was built on strong values,” they said.

 

A graduate from McGill University with a bachelor in Neurophysiology and from the University of Montreal with a degree in Optometry, Dr. Francis Jean opened his first practice in 1986 in his hometown of Baie-Comeau, Quebec. He always dreamed of creating the largest network of optometrists, opticians and ophthalmologists in Canada. And he pulled it off brilliantly, by first founding a buying group then adopting the IRIS trademark in 1990.

 

IRIS presently has 166 locations across Canada, with most being in Quebec and in the West, and is starting to expand into the Ontario market, where is has 14 places of business. Its network includes over 238 opticians, 280 optometrists and five ophthalmologists. The group also has two laser surgery clinics, one in Quebec and one in British Columbia. Annual sales in 2012 were $132 million.

 

Dr. Jean is survived by his wife, Denise; his sons, Jonathan and Guillaume, and daughter, Marilanie; his parents; his brother and sister-in-law; and his nieces and nephews.

 

We would like to extend our condolences to his family and friends as well as to the IRIS team. Funeral arrangements are being made in Baie-Comeau, Quebec.

 

For more details, click HERE to read the IRIS press release.

 

Click HERE to read an interview with Dr. Jean, published in the September 2008 issue of Opt!k Magazine, reproduced posthumously.

 

ClipInfo Express is taking a summer break. We will be back online Monday, August 4, 2014. Have a great holiday and we’ll talk to you soon!

 

Reduced vision and the brain’s processing speed could be linked, according to researchers from Tel Aviv University.

 

Visual crowding is the inability to recognize individual objects surrounded by other objects. This makes it impossible to read, for example, as single letters within words are rendered illegible, or the ability to recognize faces in a crowd is hampered. Until now, this phenomenon was attributed to a peripheral vision disorder.

 

Israeli researchers claim to have discovered a link between visual crowding and the accumulation of visual stimuli in the fovea. They studied 40 young individuals and 138 adults who were asked to situate the open part of the “E” to the right or the left of the letter, in various sizes and distances. The letter was surrounded by other letters.

 

People suffering from visual crowding had more difficulty identifying the right side of the “E” but were successful when they were exposed for longer periods. This means that they could be trained to reduce foveal crowding.

 

The researchers cited the case of a young subject who was having severe problems reading and who was unable to obtain a driver’s licence. After undergoing training, he was able to overcome the handicap. Not only did he get his licence but his academic results improved and he earned a university degree.

Source:

http://english.tau.ac.il/news/study_visual_crowding

 

A team of researchers from Singapore has developed a nanomedical treatment for glaucoma which is intended to replace eye drops.

 

This new approach was jointly developed by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI). Applied directly to the eye through a painless injection, the new treatment ensures the delivery of latanoprost for six months.

 

The delivery system is made up of millions of nano-sized capsules, which are thousands of times smaller than a speck of dust and release their contents slowly over time. The researchers believe that older people, who often forget to administer their eye drops daily, will benefit from this new approach.

 

“It is estimated that at least ten per cent of blindness from glaucoma is directly caused by poor patient adherence to their prescribed medications,” said professorTina Wong, from the SERI. “Many patients find it difficult to adhere to their doctor’s prescribed regime for many reasons, such as forgetfulness, finding it too troublesome, or they lack understanding of the disease. The results in this clinical study will open up a new treatment modality for glaucoma other than taking daily eye drops, and will greatly enhance patient compliance and improve treatment outcomes.”

Source:

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140603092332.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over-aggressive vision correction may increase the risk of falling in older adults, according to Dr. David B. Elliott, who has received the Glenn A. Fry award for a study on the topic.

 

The researcher conducted a review of studies on the impact of blurred vision and vision correction on the risk of falling in older adults. Poor vision is a significant factor in the risk of falling in older people. Consequently, one would think that getting new glasses would reduce this risk. However, the opposite is often the case.

 

In a paper published in Optometry and Vision Science, Dr. Elliott refers to a study showing that older patients getting new glasses with a big change in vision prescription have difficulty adapting and are at risk of falling.

 

Dr. Elliott suggests that optometrists use a conservative approach when prescribing glasses for older patients and keep the same type of lens that their patients are used to. He also suggests that if a patient simply requests a new frame, without complaining of vision problems, optometrists should follow the clinical maxim that says “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

Sources:

http://journals.lww.com/optvissci/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2014&issue=06000&article=00003&type=abstract

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140523145133.htm