Putting Myopia Management Standard Of Care Into Action

Updated: May 10, 2022 

In 2021 the World Council of Optometry (WCO) passed a resolution that publicly declares support for myopia management as standard of care. This was defined as:

• Mitigation: attempting to prevent or delay onset of myopia by providing advice on visual environment and watching for pre-myopia
• Measurement: providing regular comprehensive vision and eye health examinations for myopic children including measuring refraction and axial length where possible
• Management: addressing patient's needs today to correct and control myopia with evidence-based interventions, for improved quality of life and better eye health today and into the future.

While myopia management involves interdisciplinary care and awareness, myopia management starts with optometry, hence it is a vital and necessary step for the WCO to have made this resolution. The resolution means that optometrists each should have an imperative to discuss myopia risk factors and the visual environment, identify children at risk of myopia, undertake regular eye examinations (advised every 6 months by the International Myopia Institute Clinical Management Guidelines) and offer myopia correction and control.

To bring this resolution to life, WCO has partnered with CooperVision to raise awareness of myopia and the need to use the evidence to improve treatment and outcomes. This partnership has taken shape as a variety of educational resources for optometrists and supportive resources for discussions with parents, with landmark releases in September 2021, January 2022 and an upcoming virtual event on the 12th of February 2022. This article will step you through these resources.

In September 2021 the WCO, with the support of CooperVision, launched an online resource providing a central location for  multilingual assets and approaches to support the global optometric community to apply the standard of care. This website is organized around the three principles of the standard of care - mitigation, measurement and management - with additional resources on practical approaches. More resources will continue to be added throughout 2022.

Available in seven languages, A Practical Guide to Managing Children with Myopia is a Q&A format providing hands-on advice from leading myopia managing optometrists from around the world. Released in January 2022, the four authors are Dr. Carmen Abesamis-Dichoso, Philippines; Dr. Rufina Chan, Hong Kong; Dr. Kate Gifford, Australia and Dr. Fuensanta Vera-Diaz, United States. Each expert is asked 3-4 questions on how they put myopia management into practice, from managing pre-myopia to choosing a strategy to follow-up examinations and managing outcomes. This is essential reading for optometrists serious about meeting this challenge of applying myopia management as standard of care in their practices.

Find the article in your preferred language via the Standard of Care tab at the top of the website. A sample of the article in English is shown below.

These are one page, intensely useful PDF references for optometrists, to support clinical practice. Available in eight language versions, for each of the three principles of myopia management the WCO have provided two Myopia Moments. These are:

• Mitigation: Lifestyle related advice and Children at risk 
• Measurement: What to measure and Patient follow up
• Management: How to choose an intervention and Clinical Interventions

A sample of three of these six Myopia Moments is shown below. Download them from each of the Mitigation, Measurement and Management tabs on the WCO myopia website - the links are provided in the bullet points above.

A discussion forum for conversations with eye care professionals worldwide, established on the website - click here to see and contribute to the forum.

This free online event was hosted on 12^th February 2022, bringing together experts in the field of myopia management to describe how they bring the standard of care into practice. Recordings can now be accessed via this link.

• Read the one page WCO Resolution: The Standard of Care For Myopia Management by Optometrists via this link, available in eight languages.
• Access the WCO Myopia Website Resource to read the article A Practical Guide to Managing Children with Myopia and download the six Myopia Moments, both available in eight language versions.
• Watch the recordings of the Putting It Into Practice: Myopia Management Virtual Event on 12 February 2022.

The World Council of Optometry (WCO) is an international membership-based non-profile organization for individual optometrists, industry professionals and optometric organizations that envisions a world where optometry makes high quality eye health and vision care accessible to all people. Its mission is to facilitate the development of optometry around the world and support optometrists in promoting eye health and vision care as a human right through advocacy, education, policy development and humanitarian outreach. Learn more via their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.