For eye care professionals, fitting contact lenses for patients with astigmatism can be challenging. However, the challenges can be worth the effort for some patients. Select astigmatic patients may benefit from contact lenses that can offer better vision than eyeglasses. Contact lenses may provide clearer vision and a wider field of view than eye glasses.
Soft contact lenses conform to the shape of the eye; which means that standard soft lenses may not seem effective in correcting astigmatism. But special toric soft contact lenses are available to provide a correction for many types of astigmatism. In fact, even patients who have low astigmatism (0.75DC to 1.00DC) benefit visually when fitted with toric soft lenses instead of with spherical soft lenses. A recent study reported that up to 30% of astigmatic patients reported that they had not tried toric soft lenses because their eye care practitioner did not recommend them. One reason why eye care practitioners shy away from prescribing toric lenses for low astigmatic patients is because they believe that patients can tolerate a constant slight blur from a spherical lens better than a sporadic blur from a rotationally unstable toric lens. So how do eye care professionals ensure the best fit for toric lenses on their astigmatic patients?
The key is that eye care practitioners are consistent with their fits. CooperVision offers eye care practitioner tools such as a ToriTrak Calculator , which can help eye care practitioners fit their astigmatic patients. It is the most accurate method of fitting our toric contact lenses and is designed to eliminate errors in estimating lens rotation. Make sure to register for other fitting tools here and to follow us on Twitter @CooperVision for more information.