The organizers of the latest Vision Expo West are satisfied with the results from this year’s show. “Considering what is happening at other industry shows, the fact that we kept our attendee base (15,000) and the same exhibition area means we were successful,” says Tom Loughran, vice president of Reed Exhibitions Group.

 

Mr. Loughran points out that VEW offers its attendees the largest continuing education program in the industry. In addition to holding special complementary events outside the show, such as the contact lens forum, the show offered 39 various courses and almost 400 hours of training. Aside from the traditional clinical aspects, the 2014 program also gave ECPs an opportunity to acquire critical knowledge on the client experience and ways to increase their revenues, as well as on new technologies that have a direct impact on their practice, such as smart glasses or connected objects.

 

VEW also introduced some new equipment and frames, celebrities (Randy Jackson, Victor Ortiz), a video in progress (Sight: The Story of Vision) and several new apps for tablets that help take measurements and inform patients about their eye health.

 

In short, this year’s show was a full experience and plans for the next show are already underway. In 2015, it is to be held September 17–19 in Las Vegas.

 

Watch for the November issue of Opt!k Magazine to read our complete coverage of VEW 2014.

 

 

Here are the nominees in the different categories for the Silmo d’Or 2014:

 

“VISION” CATEGORY  

BBGR with“Sirus Plus” – Hall 6 C 059

 

“MATERIAL/EQUIPMENT” CATEGORY 

ESSILOR with “M’EYE Sign”  – Hall 6 J 083
FITTING BOX with “OWIZ” – Hall 6 D 103
INTERACTIF VISUEL SYSTEME with “DEEP LIGHTS by Activisu” – Hall 6 F 096
LUNEAU TECHNOLOGY with “VX55”  – Hall 5 J 044
OPTI 3 with “Logic Frame” – Hall 5 J 029

 

“LOW VISION” CATEGORY

ACCES’SOLUTIONS with “Eye Pal Ace+” – Hall 5 G 035
TELORION with “Telorion Zoom” – Hall 6 D 121
VISIOLE with “E-Bot” – Hall 5 F 043

 

“CHILDREN” CATEGORY

CAROLINE ABRAM with “5+5=10” de Tête à Lunettes – Hall 5 M 093
KARAVAN & Co with “PIXI” de Karavan kids – Hall 5 S 051
KARAVAN & Co with “Mme Princesse” de Monsieur Madame – Hall 5 S 051
OPAL with “Tartine & Chocolat TCAS153” – Hall 5 T 051 
NETOPTIC with “3118” – Hall 5 G 139

 

“OPTICAL FRAME” CATEGORY

CAROLINE ABRAM with “GAYLA” – Hall 5 M 093
FACTORY900 with “Retro Future by 900” – Hall 5 K 113
HAPTER with “HAPTER M02M” – Hall 5 N 106
LUCAS DE STAËL with “Stratus” – Hall 5 L 121
PIERO MASSARO with “PM415” – Hall 5 D 071

 

“SUNGLASS” CATEGORY

DITA EYEWEAR with “Thom Browne TB-801” – Hall 5 E 110 
FACE à FACE/WOOW with “Masai” – Hall 5 G 073
Ic! Berlin with “S42 Wedding” – Hall 5 E 073
IRRESISTOR with “Pop Star” – Hall 5 P 132
MASUNAGA X Kenzo Takada with “Campanule K18” – Hall 5 F 103

 

“SPORTS EQUIPMENT” CATEGORY

BOLLÉ Sport Protective with “Coverage” collection Enfant – Hall 6 A 012
BOLLÉ with “6th Sense RX” – Hall 6 A 012
JULBO with ”Venturi” – Hall 6 B 014
LIBERTY SPORT REC SPECS F8 with “Frog Eyes” – Hall 6 A 009 
LUNETTES GRASSET ASSOCIÉS with “Lacroix-Legend 66” – Hall 6 G 068

 

“FRAME TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION” CATEGORY

iHUMAN with  “Find Me” –  Hall 5 P 121
MOREL with “Trad” – Hall 6 C 042
MORGENROT EYEWEAR with “Morgenrot SC3” – Hall 5 B 128
VISION TECHNOLOGIES EUROPE with “Smart Frames” – Hall 6 D 120
VUILLET VEGA with “Celeste” – Hall 6 D 036

 

ClipInfo will announce the name of the winners the day following the Gala, to be held Friday, September 26.

 

 

A tiny implant could help patients continuously measure their intraocular pressure from the comfort of their own homes.

 

Developed by a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University and an ophthalmologist from Bar-Ilan University in Israel, the device is in fact a small tube. One end is open to the fluids that fill the eye; the other end is capped with a small bulb filled with gas. As the intraocular pressure increases, intraocular fluid is pushed into the tube, and the gas pushes back against the fluid. This causes the barrier between the fluid and the gas to move, allowing the patient to measure the pressure.

 

A smartphone app or smart glasses could be used to snap a photo of the instrument, providing a critical wealth of data. Previous research has shown that measuring intraocular pressure over 24 hours, rather than once a day or week, results in a change in treatment in up to 80 per cent of patients.

 

The scientists now just need to re-engineer the device with materials that will increase the life of the device inside the human eye, and to find a better way of implanting it. “I believe that only a few years are needed before clinical trials can be conducted,” says Israeli ophthalmologist Yossi Mandel.

Source: 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/281574.php

People with more yellow pigment in their eyes seem to see further than others, even through haze or atmospheric pollution.

 

By filtering out “blue haze,” i.e., haze in which blue light rays are more dispersed than rays from red or infrared light, the yellow pigments seem to improve vision. In the lab, researchers tested the visibility of distant objects through haze. It took twice as much haze for the objects to disappear from the view of subjects who had more yellow pigment than from the view of others.

 

The presence of this pigment has to do with the accumulation of the nutrients lutein and zeaxanthin in the eye and helps protect it from long-term damage. The study reveals that this characteristic has probably developed over the course of human evolution because it improves vision.

 

The findings of the experiment show that people with more yellow pigment may have an advantage when it comes to outdoor activities such as flying a plane. To be sure, however, the experiment will have to be reproduced in natural outdoor conditions. 

Sources: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140825123319.htm

http://journals.lww.com/optvissci/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2014&issue=09000&article=00010&type=abstract

 

A Native American genetic heritage appears to increase the risk of diabetic retinopathy among Latino Americans with type 2 diabetes.

 

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Eye Institute say they have discovered one of the causes that increase the incidence of diabetic retinopathy among Latino Americans in comparison with Whites or African Americans.

 

They studied data from 944 Latino Americans aged 40 and over with type 2 diabetes, 135 of whom suffered from retinopathy. Typically, Latino Americans have a genetic background that includes genes of Native American, European and African origin. Researchers noted that individuals whose genealogy consisted of more than 50% Native American ancestry had an 87% higher chance of developing the disease.

 

“The next step is to try to identify which genes of Native American origin contribute to the increased risk of developing severe diabetic retinopathy,” says Xiaoyi Gao, the main author of the article which was published recently on the website of the journal Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.

Sources:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140821132653.htm

http://www.iovs.org/content/early/2014/08/20/iovs.14-15044