September 9, 2021
ST. LOUIS — The World Council of Optometry (WCO) released a new online resource specifically for myopia management. As the organization continues to strengthen its myopia management standard of care, leaders from the WCO and CooperVision developed an easy-to-use new resource that provides multilingual assets and approaches that will allow eye care professionals to apply a standard of care to manage the condition — regardless of their location.
“This online resource provides eye care practitioners from anywhere in the world access to the information they need to implement a standard of care to treat or manage a patient’s myopia progression,” said Paul Folkesson, president, World Council of Optometry. “Thanks to the support of CooperVision, information regarding the treatment of myopia is more accessible than ever before. This is just the start as we work to provide more materials and educational programming through this collaborative partnership.”
The myopia online resource was developed to serve as a valuable point to provide information that has not been easily accessible and provide a forum to encourage the exchange of knowledge and experiences within the global optometric community. The site is organized around the three main pillars of the evidence-based standard of care unanimously adopted by the WCO Board of Directors: mitigation, measurement, and management. Each pillar provides a listing of papers and studies that have been distilled into one-page “Myopia Moments” that are available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Visitors to the site can download a Myopia Moment, giving them evidence-based guidance about providing care to a patient, or they can learn more by accessing the many papers and studies that have been aggregated from independent third-party sources.
“The World Council of Optometry’s 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,” said Folkesson. “There is no better example of the WCO carrying out this mission than our effort to address the childhood epidemic of myopia. We need eye care professional to embrace the support, resources, and platform WCO is providing so they can start implementing a standard of care in their practices to treat this condition.”
