Glare. In our many years of practice, this is undoubtedly one of the most common symptoms we hear from our patients especially when it comes to driving at night. Frustratingly, there has been limited treatment options. Up until recently we had two main methods treating glare, namely glasses and cataract surgery. If glare persisted outside of those two treatments, well, we didn’t have much more we could do.
Today we introduce a new technology that allows us to accurately measure the cause of glare and provide solutions. The technology is called OVITZ® (https://www.ovitz.us/). It is what is known as a wavefront aberrometer and, until recently, only used in research laboratories.
What It Does
The OVITZ® xwave System measures what are known as Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs). These HOAs are responsible for the glare that causes such visual difficulty driving at night or in the rain. Lower Order Aberrations (LOAs) are responsible for your typical refractive error-related blurred vision; think near and farsightedness. HOAs have interesting names such as coma and trefoil and they create unique distortions of light. (See OVITZ® Page)
Treatment
These HOAs unfortunately are not corrected with glasses and different treatments are needed to bring them under control. Some HOAs can be mitigated by topical medication that will shrink the pupil. However, most effective is a wavefront guided contact lens designed from the analysis of the OVITZ® aberrometer. The “System” in OVITZ® xwave System is an integrated, closed-loop system that performs the HOA measurements and analysis and then ties into a patented contact lens manufacturing process. The result is a wavefront-guided contact lens that counters the irregularity and HOAs of the eye, specifically the cornea. This is a unique lens for each individual patient.
Who Would Benefit
Those with changes to the cornea, the front surface of the eye, are ideal for benefit from OVITZ® technology. Commonly the best patients are those that have had laser vision correction or a corneal condition, such as a dystrophy or keratoconus.
Truly anyone that suffers from night driving glare would benefit from OVITZ® testing as it allows your eye doctor to understand the optics of the eye and provide higher levels of care than previously possible.
