As part of my final project for a university biology course last year, I delivered a school-wide presentation on the topic of vision health. I thought vision health would make a good topic because of what I've learned and experienced concerning my own vision. This project revealed a widespread lack of knowledge about vision health.

For example:

• When explaining astigmatism, a woman shared with me that she hadn't known what it meant to have an astigmatism though she had been diagnosed with it for years.

• A few students who wore eyeglasses due to being nearsighted didn't know what flashes were; neither did they know that having high myopia increases the risk of glaucoma, retinal detachment and other retinal disorders.

• A classmate, diagnosed with diabetes, who didn't wear glasses or contact lenses but often stated that she was "blind" (meaning she had a difficult time seeing clearly), didn't consider that her vision issues might be related to being diabetic.

• Many students heard of glaucoma but don't know what glaucoma is, what causes it and who's at risk.

• And many of the students admitted to experiencing some sort of vision issue but hadn't seen an eye doctor about those issues.

For my project I featured information about various vision issues such as refractive errors, glaucoma, and disorders of the retina. After talking to many of the students I found that a number of them didn't know much about their own vision issues and diagnoses.

Hearing these things didn't surprise me too much because about a year prior I didn't know any of these things either. I didn't even know the severity of my own vision issues, but what did surprise me was learning during my research for this project was that there are millions of people in the United States living with uncorrected vision issues because either they don't take their vision health seriously or because they don't know the importance of vision health.  

A big part of the lack of knowledge could be due to a lack of education and understanding that vision health should be a high priority just like any other health concern; that it's important to everyone whether a person has a visual disorder or not. 

I tell family, co-workers, clients, everyone - especially anyone who complains of vision issues or pain to get an eye exam and to get them annually because there are potentially blinding visual disorders that don't have warning signs, glaucoma being one of them.

During eye exams it's very important to ask questions and state your concerns to doctors for the sake of understanding. Ask questions such as - What vision issues am I at risk of? What does it mean? How will it affect me? And what do I do now?

Doctors can help as well by making sure patients understand their vision issues by asking questions to find out what patients know about their vision health instead of assuming that their patients already know. Even if a patient has lived with a visual disorder or impairment for years, it doesn't mean they have all of the facts.