Guest Lecture By Mary Lou Riederer

The Elite School of Optometry organized a Special Guest Lecture on March 22, 2006. Dr. Mary Lou Riederer (Past President and Executive Member, Bristish Columbia Optometrist Association) spoke on "The Optometry Assessment of the Preschool Child for early detection of Amblyopia and Strabismus".

Dr. Riederer spoke about the different tests for assessing preschool children. She said that it is important to capture the attention of the children and maintain their interest in the tests. Using the siblings as our associates in testing would be a good idea to capture the interest of the child. Her talk was mainly on how the existing optometric office can be modified to attract the interest of the child - like keeping toys, posters, games etc. She said that doing a Cover Test (for detection of squint) would not work with the children. Dr. Riederer also presented few case studies on why penalization technique with atropine might not be the right treatment for amblyopia since there is a risk of the better eye becoming amblyopic.