Introduction of Eye Drop Assistive Device

Posted by Winnie Melda on May 9th, 2019

Introduction

Patient compliance to eye medications is a critical element in the successful management of eye problems.  The Compliance to medication is impacted by a number of factors including the technique of administering eye drops. When eyed drops are administered correctly, the therapeutic benefits from medications are maximized. However, various studies have reported that the manner in which patients self-administer eye drops is suboptimal. This has been found to be significantly associated with inaccurate eye drop placement (Kahook, 2007).

Adherence to treatment for patients with eye problems would be enhanced by using eye drop assistive devices.  For example, the mainstay treatment for patients with Glaucoma is topical drops. A leading cause of blindness worldwide, Glaucoma requires adherence to treatment in order to prevent its impacts. However, adherence to the treatment regimen is known to be affected by physical limitations, frequent dosing requirements, and forgetfulness (Lacey et al, 2009). Eye drop assistive devices are designed to help such patients adhere to their prescription. This technique of drop instillation has been proved to be beneficial for patients with considerable visual impairment.

In their study, Burn & Mulley (1992) find that the majority of patients who participated in the study experienced difficulties with the application of eye drops. Among the 43 patients, half of the number who self-administered their treatments was unlikely to instill a drop into the conjunctiva sac. Those who used assistive devices had a high successful rate in the application (Burn & Mulley, 1992).

Ritch et al., (2003) demonstrate that patients with loss of fixation in one eye take additional time to instill each drop in the eye. After the introduction of a drop instillation technique, the time taken to instill each drop decreased and the drops’ landing points on the eye became more accurate (Ritch et al., 2003). Hence, devices to help patients administer eye drops make self-administration easier, reduce reliance on others and help improve patient compliance.

References

Burns, E., & Mulley, G. P. (1992). Practical problems with eye-drops among elderly ophthalmology outpatients. Age and ageing, 21(3), 168-170.

Kahook, M. Y. (2007). Developments in dosing aids and adherence devices for glaucoma therapy: current and future perspectives. Expert review of medical devices, 4(2), 261-266.

Lacey, J., Cate, H., & Broadway, D. C. (2009). Barriers to adherence with glaucoma medications: a qualitative research study. Eye, 23(4), 924.

Ritch, R., Jamal, K. N., Gürses-Özden, R., & Liebmann, J. M. (2003). An improved technique of eye drop self-administration for patients with limited vision. American journal of ophthalmology, 135(4), 530-533.

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in Online Paper Writing Service. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from Professional Custom Writing Services.