i think we are live so hello everybody welcome to the second session of college bus series uh today the talk is going to be quite interesting and science style uh today's uh panelists and uh the speakers will be moderated by none other than is uh has been an educator at bharti vidya pete he is also my colleague at the international association of contact lens educators as well as he's the consultant to washington and has a very keen interest as far as optometry education is concerned so over to
you nilish to moderate the session thank you yeah thank you lakshmi for having me here once again it's amazing uh to be a part of such discussions you know and today i think this is going to be a very very exciting topic right and there are some questions which are very intriguing i always keep thinking about this for example what came first chicken or egg what what is more important or the engine of the car or the features of the car right what is more important hardware or software and similar
ly what is more important in optometric practice is the science or the style and i think this is exactly where you guys hit the nail in terms of selecting this particular topic and i'm sure this is going to be very very interesting and maybe towards the end of this we'll probably have an answer which is better or whether both are equally important and i think nielsen and mano are going to talk us through that so before we proceed just quickly on what how we are going to go about this particular
session um we'll start with uh nielsen who's going to talk slightly more about science and then we'll follow that up with mano who is going to speak about the style element and towards the end of it we will also have rushed and ananta in in a panel discussion where all your questions will be answered and you know if you have any comments if you have any questions please send them on the facebook chat as well as if you're on the zoom you can put it in the zoom chat and i'm really looking forward
to this particular session right so guys if you're ready um let me take this opportunity to introduce nielsen a little bit more formally though we've always been informal right nilsson so i i think he at this point of time deserves to be introduced more formally so nielsen has graduated from the university of new south wales he comes from down under australia right uh he also completed his masters in public health at the university of new south wales he is actually you know a third generation op
tometrist and overall experience of 17 years and first 10 years i think he spent in uh he gave his services towards non not-for-profit eye care organizations at a senior level management professional um he has trained over 700 optometrists i think needless in that number is um underestimated i think you've trained more than that and you know we used to have some such amazing fun when we uh worked together in terms of e-peps and the um the presby education programs and all so we had some wonderfu
l memories and such great times and i i can assure you that nielsen is a real good speaker and you're gonna enjoy his talk so nielsen over to you and i'm really sorry that i'm really sorry that um you had to lose the test match series in australia but can't help now i thought we um agreed that we're not talking about cricket no no no i didn't well um thank you nilesh and lakshmi for the opportunity to speak to my colleagues and friends in india that i've known for quite some time and as nilesh m
entioned optometry is one of the few healthcare professions where we actually combine fashion and clinical care um so today i'd really like to talk a little bit about how do we marry the two how do they work together and our role as optometrists in this process so before i start i'd just like to acknowledge a good friend and colleague of mine mr tim cern director of professional services for s law in australia and new zealand tim and my colleague who has since passed dr david wilson used to trav
el quite extensively for the varilux academy and education programs the brian holden institute um so tim has kindly shared some slides that we presented in the past which you'll you'll see in a moment um just briefly a little bit about my background nilesh touched on it um my family have a practice in perth western australia called melville optical clinic so i'm currently the owner and director of that practice i'm also working with a group called emphthalmic they're a startup organization in vi
sion science and contact lens research a real up-and-coming organization that you'll be you'll see a lot and hear a lot more of in future also doing some work with charities and the new optometry school that has started in western australia as of this year um as nilesh mentioned i'm a third generation optometrist my grandfather graduated from the bombay college of optometry in 1957 and my father is 50th year as an optometrist this year he was at the city university in london my wife and my siste
r are optometrists as well so we have a lot of optometry background but the biggest uh uh or the best news coming out of india in recent times for me was the recognition of optometry as part of the national commission for allied health allied and healthcare act in 2021 this is a dream of the late professor brian holden who would be absolutely thrilled that optometry has received this recognition but now the hard work starts and i think some of the points that i'll raise in this uh presentation a
bout the duty of care of optometrists to educate the patients and the and elevate the profession um is really important and and how we might go about that it will take time to change the behavior and the attitudes of consumers but it's important to start now so just briefly some of the learning objectives in this presentation we'll look at the scientific and clinical considerations in a fashion retail environment and we'll look at how we determine opportunities to prescribe solutions back based
on a customer's needs as well as clinical findings that you'll find within a in the examination room also understanding the importance of history taking and clinical examination and the importance of as one progressive lenses in fashion frames so in the clinic that we have in in perth in western australia we do prescribe these basically these frames we um tom ford there's maui jim's lafonts coco song there may be some brands that you're familiar with in india as well often the trends are larger
frames now we don't we don't fit so many compact design frames anymore larger frames tend to sit on the cheeks of patients it's difficult to adjust pantoscopic tilt we often have patients with high scripts wanting large frames um we're finding a lot more patients want acetate frames so like the this tom ford or the coco song so they're those present challenges in terms of fitting heights and adjustments so manav will discuss a little bit more about style but you know there is there are some impo
rtant considerations that when patients choose frames what we need to consider as practitioners and i've put a a picture here of a person wearing a rather exaggerated frame but we can't control the fashions and as practitioners we have to look at the way these glasses or particular frames fit patients and how as the practitioner we need to take control of the situation and um ensure that the person has the optimal vision um that the best vision that they can expect from the frames because a pers
on essentially wants to come to you with a particular style in mind and it's your role to actually provide them with good vision so essentially there is tremendous opportunity for optometrists to guide this process so initially a person will come in with an identified need they want a new style their vision has changed and it is up to the optometrist to really understand what the person's needs are conduct an examination provide solutions to them according to their needs and the findings in the
clinical examination and then guide or inform the patient in terms of the most appropriate choices so that will often allow you to differentiate yourselves if you are able to to really master these four areas to differentiate yourselves in a very competitive market in terms of providing the appropriate vision care for your patients if you get this right as ultimately you'll be developing lifelong relationships with your customers your your business will grow with referrals and word of mouth esse
ntially and you'll get a sense of professional satisfaction because ultimately if you feel that if the patient does dictate the way they want to look and you aren't considering the optical factors then you are really having you are setting yourself up for some difficult times in their clinical sense so talking about style and science style we're talking about the retail fashion side of things we're also then blending it with a science which is a clinical optics and in between we have something c
alled the patient journey and i'll talk to you a little bit about that that's something that i have taught quite extensively with tim in the past about how there's different touch points that a patient goes through and how we may influence them as a practitioner so a really important point is that what i've written down there is that the best clinical refraction is pointless if spectacles aren't fitted measured and dispensed correctly so fitting dispensing and measuring are absolutely critical i
n guiding achieving success for your patients so i mentioned the patient journey if we break up the patients i say touch points with your practice prior to their consultation they may come go online and search for your practice read a little bit about you they might book their appointments online they'll come to your reception area and or wait for their right test then in the consulting room we conduct the eye test and then in the dispensary or the in the um i suppose the shop floor we do the ha
ndover we can demonstrate products and then reinforce some of the messages that we described or we we we identified in the two previous phases [Music] personally in our practice in australia our optometrists are involved in both primarily the consulting room and the dispensary we like to sort of take that journey forward across as many of this as possible so that the patient has continuity and that whatever we've discussed in the in the consulting room we continue through into the dispensary oka
y so some of the things that consumers want from you as the practitioner as the expert in optics and clinical care is to prescribe a solution based on their needs really understanding what they want to use their glasses for understanding what do they use their eyes for is absolutely critical in what you recommend for the person then showing them the benefits and value of their prescription is also another important factor so demonstrating using tools to actually show the patient what is the bene
fit of some of the things that you're prescribing or recommending so they can almost touch and feel some of those things before they purchase them is absolutely critical to success and then at the end we often always offer the patient a choice and we give them the the options and we lay them out clearly for them so that they can choose what they feel is most appropriate for them so i'll spend a little bit of time now just talking a little bit about the cons consultation room and how we as an opt
ometrist you demonstrate your skills but before i do i'd like to just talk a little bit about refraction versus prescription okay so when we do a prescription you often see the um you know you have your your your distance your near prescription and it looks essentially like this but this is essentially just a set of numbers um but this these set of numbers are prescribed or based on parameters of the patient's eyes their refraction based on the curvatures the length of their eye but it's not a p
rescription that is adapted or or or i suppose uh tweaked according to what um they need their spectacles for um so that is something that we as an optometrist need to do a little bit of detective work we need to identify that problem and recommend appropriate solutions so a key point is that are we just selling glasses or are we making recommendations based on clinical findings so this is where we often practitioners especially in australia that they don't like to get involved in what they feel
is the selling or recommending because they feel like they they have too much of a retail sort of flavor to what they do they want to be the clinician however if we conduct a clinical exam and we identify con key pieces of information that we can then provide a professional recommendation that line is less blurred it becomes a professional recommendation and one of the most important pieces that get overlooked is the history and symptoms spending i actually spend about 15 minutes in in australi
a the eye test takes about 30 minutes and i spend often about 15 minutes talking i often get in trouble for running a little bit late but i really find it's critical to understand the patient build some rapport with them understand their personality their interests what do they do for work what are their hobbies and while i'm understanding all these things i actually are in my mind i'm actually building up a set of recommendations already but prior to actually starting to examine their eyes many
of the practices that i've visited in india in the past this is this part of the examination is often sort of overlooked or it's it's it's quite condensed um so look taking some time understanding their ocular history any medications that they take their family history their visual performance their occupation all these things give you an opportunity to understand what exactly a patient needs for their vision care so again some of these slides have a lot of detail in them but some of the questi
ons that you can focus on is you know understanding um what their previous experience is with their glasses um do they you can even talk about contact lenses and i think that's something i've got smiling i'm sure in terms of it's not only a spectacle solution but also there are other options that you can recommend for them and then when we observe a patient we're observing their eye color their complexion their skin type we asked them about their family history do they have a family history of m
acular degeneration all these things start to then start to tie into potential products or lens treatments such as multi coats or high index or blue light filters that we can recommend for a patient some practices in australia recommend questionnaires or they provide questionnaires to the patient so the patient then fills this out prior to the examination um me personally i like to talk to the person so i don't do questionnaires but i know a lot of my colleagues in australia do these questionnai
res it really gives the patient an opportunity to actually articulate some of their [Music] their needs and wants for their um for their glasses or for their eye care um the eye examination and i'll go through a few of the points that i look for when when testing eyes of a patient especially from from an externals or a slit lamp if we look we identify cataracts or we see pterygiums even pingueculi on the surface of the eye i naturally then start to have a conversation with the patient in terms o
f do you spend a lot of time outdoors do you spend a lot of time in the sun what sort of sun protection do you use um because obviously people know that uv rays can hurt their eyes and cause changes on the surface of their eyes but often they they may not be wearing a good pair of sunglasses or they they not wearing sunglasses all the time so you as the eye care practitioner has that opportunity to raise these points based on what you're seeing on their eye and talking to that about to them abou
t it uh for instance if i do see a pingueculae or i see a lump or a bump on their eyelid i'll say generally to a younger person you know you've got some hardening or you've got some uv damage on the surface of your eye you're quite young we want to look after your eyes longer term so have you considered wearing sun protection for your eyes even if in australia we do get a lot of basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas people are very sun conscious here but one of the things is a new s
un cream but one of the things is you can't put sun cream around your eyelids so the eyelid is is one of the exposed areas where um you know you can develop sun related changes so sun exposure obviously we know what um sun exposure can do but i generally have uh three or four points that i talk to parents or children about according to their skin types in color what i've seen on their slit lamp and then i make appropriate recommendations do we talk about tints or photochromic lenses polarized le
nses you know to talk about polarized lenses in terms of they have a filter inside of that cuts out of uh glare so tints while they are uv protected polarized lenses um filter out bright reflections to give you better eye comfort then we then talk about multi coats multi coats is often forgotten that many multi coats are uv protected some contact lenses are options because contact lenses also protect the um the eye from uv light other options are you know you're talking about to patients in thei
r mid 40s to mid 50s and often they're using single vision lenses where most my patients will not walk out with single vision lenses because you have a range of clear vision uh with ex with single vision lenses and often uh professionals in their 40s to 50 mid 50s are using computers or particular devices so i actually demonstrate the the range of clear vision to a patient and say does your work fall within this range of clear vision and as their range of as they get older that range of clear vi
sion becomes smaller so i actually demonstrate that to the patient so that they have the most appropriate correction for their eyes even from an ergonomic perspective if they're spending a lot of time in front of the computer using single vision lenses and that their prescription that range of clear vision falls outside the computer screen then they often have difficulty with comfort anti-fatigue lenses are a new or fairly rapidly growing segment in australia where we perform a lot of binocular
vision testing and uh demonstrate the effect of having an anti-fatigue lens using a trial frame and different sort of powers of the anti-fatigue in the near in the near part of the lens to show them the benefits of um of these lenses especially for computer work and for children when we talk about high index lens we i mean talking about high index lenses and style um again for patients that have skin issues they have sinusitis or very sensitive sinuses that they don't like the weight then high i
ndex lenses then come into play as well so you often see sometimes you see patients again an exaggerated example wearing large frames and with a high prescription so what i often do with these patients is i actually draw them a picture i say well look there's plus lenses two triangles like this and if we have a larger a larger frame we are getting more edge thickness especially for a minus lens if we have more lens in the frame it adds weight um you know to not have a multi-coat in this day and
age if you're talking about style is is crazy um i think about our current stats are about 98 of our patients have multi coats they have high fashion frames but if they have a frame that with a a lens without a multi-coat people take photos of them and the lens fills up with the flash or they can see their reflection people can see their reflection in their glasses so i talk to all our patients about these sort of things i and and even the the index or the the charts like this i actually show th
em what it would look like for them so that they can blend that style and and we can show them the science um i'll just briefly talk about just mindful of time uh but i'll just talk briefly about spectacle measurements um and when we dot progressive lenses it's something that tim dave and i have spoken a lot about in the past especially in india that there is a lot of variability with dotting progressive lenses um you sometimes see their premium progressive lenses about 1.2 lakhs so if you're yo
u're dispensing lenses with a a an ink marker that presents problems so there you know to fit progressive lenses correctly with mono pd's heights vertex distance pantoscopic tilt to get the best performance those are some of the things that we should really be factoring in when we are looking at dispensing progressive lenses aspheric lenses are critical as well to discuss with patients that have high plus prescriptions in particular um to flatten the lenses so they have a better cosmesis or bett
er uh cosmetic effects as well fitting lenses is absolutely critical as well so talk when we all know that the center of rotation rules so we drop the optical center every one one millimeter for every two degrees of pantoscopic tilt so demonstrating your expertise and fitting spectacles correctly is absolutely critical in this day and age i'll just touch on a few brief case studies before i wrap up but so often we see a lot of spectacles like this with a large arm that they're uh a shell frame u
m but often the success rate with some of these frames is diff is challenging with a standard progressive lens because we can't um one of the key things is being able to adjust pantos and the rectangle and vertex and vertex distance is often fixed with these sort of frames so being able to use technology so i use a device called the eye ruler 2. um it's a digital device which actually captures a lot of this information it captures rap pantoscopic tilt and vertex distance and allowing me to captu
re that information and send it to the lab will often has a tremendous success rate when you're having patience with those sort of frames um coming to your practice so some of the ingredients for success is looking at selecting the correct lens design for the person according to their needs looking at the appropriate lens matrix materials and treatments and capturing accurate measurements so that in combination with your product knowledge from your lens company representatives your measuring too
ls and communication skills really does set you up for a happy patient and as i mentioned earlier demonstrate demonstrate demonstrate i have all sorts of charts and samples and whatnot that i i show to patients i show them what a multi-coat is i show give them a product brochures i show them the effects of blue light and whatnot so the patient is really able to make an informed choice to get the best benefits and the customer is not always right we always hear that in a retail sense but if a cus
tomer comes in with large frames with a high refractive error they they're they're setting themselves up on and you for um headaches for trouble um progressive lens of the moderate to high ads into frames we can't tilt is a big issue um and you know patients that have a wide nose bridge with or a large back vertex distance with standard progressive lenses always battle and if you're able to identify that as a practitioner and select and guide them to choose a frame with a wider bridge often sets
them up for for success so some of the take-home messages is to really conduct a comprehensive clinical exam especially the history and symptoms understand the features and benefits of your lens products make the recommendations discuss the pros and cons with the patient but take control be the expert you're you're you're an optometrist you're well trained you understand these things but you need to relate your science your knowledge in a really simple way to your patients that they can underst
and and science and style can equate they can work together but you need to know the limitations and inform the patient and discuss with the patient when you see some red flags that you need to warn them about that may affect their success so attention to detail ultimately equals a patient for life patients that have had trouble elsewhere you've identified some of these challenging aspects and you've corrected them they will be your patient for life so i hope i didn't go too late but uh thank yo
u for for listening and um i'll i'll pass back to nilesh um and if you'd like to contact me there's some of my details and i'm on linkedin as well if you'd like to reach out and ask any questions so um yep thank you so much nielsen that's a lovely picture at the end i i love the talk the passion is coming through right as a clinician but i also like the fact that you know apart from being a clinician you're also doing a great job in counseling the patients because i think some some of us do miss
that we are very hardcore clinicians so we don't take the time to take proper history and to recommend the right product for the right uh patients so guys if you have any questions uh please put them um on the facebook chat or on the zoom chat and we'll take them after the next talk also please wait till the end because we have a feedback form and a survey towards the end which you you're supposed to fill up once you do that you get your attendance certificate uh let's move across to the second
uh talk and we have a man of chopra mano is currently the senior training manager of exotica india i wear private limited um he is managing the training functions for luxottica india with overall experience of over 16 years in the field of learning and development you know across various training in intensive industries at luxottica he and his team they conduct training for internal and external stakeholders so basically the retail chair partners we have eye care practitioners we have optometri
sts so his job is mainly to train these people on various aspect of style so i'm really looking forward to this talk because i think we we do get to hear a lot from the science side now this is the time to hear from the style side and i'm sure there is a little bit of science behind style as well so manov over to you thank you and uh i would really like to thank uh nielsen for such a wonderful talk because you know when he started he kind of initiated the movement with stylistic as an element so
i think you know it kind of gives me a you know a slight edge now i don't know if it's an edge but yes more importantly what is coming across is that even if we are talking about for example lenses you know especially where you have higher powers for your customers so that is also one aspect where aesthetical elements become really important so that is the reason when we are talking about style uh it holds no less value and i'm sure that you know when we talk about science uh there is a science
as militia is also mentioning that there is a science behind the stylistic element as well that science probably is from the perspective of maybe frames or you know let's talk about the data analysis and you know the trends and things like that so maybe a little different than uh the optometry but more importantly it does have an element of science as well so like militias already introduced me so i've been working for about 16 plus years now and uh it's been quite a journey with exotica and i'
m sure that you know when we are talking about style exotica kind of you know looking at the gamut of brands or the blather of brands that exotica has i think it kind of comes really handy with exotica so that's the reason why when we talk about uh brands when we talk about style you know i think uh there's a lot to talk there's a lot to mention so uh i would first you know go on to the slide which uh is more of a paradox now when i say paradox you know we have always two sides of it so is sungl
ass only a style accessory because a lot of people do think like that that it is more of a style accessory but yes like nielsen has already shared in his slides that you know you have a lot of countries where you have a heavy uv exposure and india being one of them you know because of its tropical uh placement or geographical placement i think india also is one country where this information holds true so we cannot assume that it is only a style accessory it also has necessities alongside and li
kewise when we look at frames it cannot only be because of the necessity it also has an element of style so for example you know there have been lately a lot of advertisements that you may have seen across that comes across with the fact that it is not only about you know wearing a frame it is also about changing it regularly like you change your attires like you change your apparels because it is for a different situation it is for a different reason it is for let's say different occasions that
's the reason why these paradoxes are still there uh we'll try and manage to uh minimize it i don't know if we can completely eradicate that but yes more importantly like i said it is really important to understand that you know there is an element of style as well in the frames or the optical side of the business as well so uh this is a small study that was done in about five countries uh uh you know where we wanted to understand from the consumers themselves that when it comes to their persona
l image now so for example when we are looking at doctors most of us would think that doctors or maybe any kind of a professional probably would go really well with maybe a semi-rimless or a rimless string you could see that you know i've been wearing that too so probably uh this is also one one factor that you know there are some notions that have come to our mind in such a way that you know they've become fixated now why fixated because we've seen this for quite some time so and we kind of ass
ociate that with the kind of role that the person plays so we wanted to understand from people that you know what is it you know when it comes to their personal image what kind of impacts a lot you know is it the dress the attire or maybe for example the watches or accessories eyeglasses or sunglasses the first thing that you look at somebody with you know or or you know the immediate look that you understand from a person is off the face and not of the physical body so that is the reason the mo
ment you're you're looking at someone's face it says that you know eyeglasses 56 of the time people said that you know it conveys my personal image so you know then following it up with sunglasses being 41 then accessories and shoes and dresses and of course the hat or maybe any other uh you know accessory that people would want to wear so it does make us recognizable then of course it has a large impact on the other person about making observations about us so for example i today i'm wearing th
is so in case if i try and remove this and probably wear something like this uh maybe you know if you're looking at me for the first time probably the person seemed like that this guy is probably a lot geeky in case if i'm wearing something probably a little more roundish it may kind of sound and maybe with some colors you know it may kind of look as if you know i'm too fashionable so that is where when we talk about this it kind of defines that what kind of a personality i may or may not be so
it does differentiate us from others as well so very important there so when we come to this kind of a conclusion we also understand that you know a lot of people who've been buying from our stores you know um we have you know for example when we look at our independent stores category there is you know it is it holds true for most of us but for independent stores uh you know it kind of makes a lot more sense that you know when we look at the amount of repeat customers or loyalists to our stores
there are a lot of them so when we talk to them about one kind of a frame sometimes the notion comes in as if you know i already have something like this do i really need to invest more so that is the reason why sometimes you know changing that as per the occasional nuances occasional dynamics it kind of helps us you know get more traction from the customer get more attention and also an opportunity for us to kind of put through our uh you know products one two uh gives him or her an opportunit
y to try something different for a different occasion so that's the reason why you know all this these things become really important now when we look at a lot of things that you know we uh can talk about so from the point of uh you know the overall behavior or personality or maybe the stylistic element and also the facial physio of a person now there are four different you know uh parameters you know where we try to understand that what kind of stylistic product should we look at for uh deliver
ing to the customer so when we look at observations you know there are a lot of observations we probably would have been making it you know in our own sense inside the store for example it could be based on the facial expressions you know the the size or probably the cheek bones or for example the hairstyle the eyebrows a lot of parameters you know which are a part of the physiognomy now do we also consider you know i i know that sometimes it becomes really difficult to kind of you know talk abo
ut the uh skin undertone but his skin undertone also plays an important role so for example you know facial physique would kind of talk about two different ways of looking at a person's style it could be something that goes in contrast it could be something that goes in coherence now that depends on the consumer that you know what kind of facial expressions does he want to portray so that is the reason when facial physique comes across there are a few things that becomes really really important
but other than that when you're trying to understand the customer so okay now i can give you a lot of examples here so for example the first one that i would give you is of a doctor the personality of a doctor is something that is really subtle you know something that kind of comes across as a really professional person you know something somebody that you know people look up to so that is the reason why personality becomes really important and if you may you know okay i'll share with you one of
my examples i went to one of the hospitals i think this story is about good six seven years ago when i went to a doctor for my son and uh he was a pediatric and he was actually wearing a red shirt with a cartoonic dye with a lot of color and loud uh typology of frame so uh the first instance when i saw him i was like uh okay have i come to the right place why because in certain kind of an environment sometimes you start expecting that okay this person would be looking something like this or you
know should look something like this so that is why the personality also becomes really important but on the other note i may have you know my uh interpretations about different scenarios as a wearer of the product so that is why my attitude will also play an important role so when i say my attitude there could be different moods that i may have bases different situations so that is why i also need to understand that if i am also pitching the consumer bases the variation in the moods that he ma
y have depending on the circumstances that he may get into so when you're trying to understand try and understand his personality i think personality becomes really important from the point of profession and attitude becomes really important from the point of his persona so that is why his moods his circumstances his personal uh you know attributes that becomes really really important and then basis these functionality you may reach uh you know the top of the pyramid where you are in a position
to advise the customer the right set of frames the right style of product with the colors with the size everything put together so stylistic element uh is also uh you know factored in from the point of uh let's say the lenses so like for example lincoln was talking about the higher powers you know you may have for example today uh bifocal lenses or maybe uniform lenses which are known as progressive ones so uh you know why are we moving from exam for example from let's say a bifocal appearance t
o maybe you know an appearance which is more uniform in nature which is progressive so because you know sometimes you know it is functional but yes it is also aesthetical so it does uh make a quick difference between the vision but i also understand that you know sometimes you know from the perspective of let's say the aesthetical element it may not look nice to a few people so that is the reason why both of them put together kind of gives a 360 degree approach to the client that you know okay i
'm looking at both parameters together now what can come across you know from the point of uh from the point of stylistic elements so for example it could be the face shapes which can be further divided into multiple so a lot of people a lot of organizations have different way to depict it so you know there are some faces which are rounded in nature and there are some faces which are angular in nature now likewise when you look at the frame shapes they're also in the similar category which are b
oth angular and rounded so do you want to give something incoherence is the consumer wanting to buy something in coherence or is he wanting to buy something in contrast likewise the skin undertone you know which is what i spoke about you know there are some colors that will go in coherence which will blend as per the skin color and if there are some some products that will actually stand out now why would they stand out it is because of the fact that you know you probably may want to stand out b
ecause it's a particular occasion that you want to uh you know participate in so other than that you know there are facial features now sometimes we limit our conversations to the facial shapes and we do not extend them further to maybe facial features for example length of the nose or maybe you know the temples you know so for example when we look at temples just to give you a small anecdote if somebody has a longer face you know because uh you know the maximum part of the skin is visible it is
always recommended that you give him a thicker temple and that too in the middle fitting of the frame not on the top of the fairing because sometimes you know uh aesthetically you know when you are trying to give something which is on a topper fitting you know specifically to a long face person it kind of blends into the hair and you know it doesn't make a difference in terms of the visibility towards the side profile of a person then for example making the person feel uh you know the aesthetic
al element by asking him to fit his frame just below the eyebrows so then for example the dark circle so there are a lot of elements that i can talk about in this case then moving on uh you know we also sometimes in you know other countries in india that probably is a little less specific but yes in a lot of countries you have different eye colors as well so eye colors also play an important role the side profile plays an important role the length of the nose plays an important role so these are
some factors you know when you talk about now uh other than that how many of us uh try and follow for example uh let's say somebody who's an expert in in talking about fashion as an appeal now in case if we are trying to follow them they generally would not talk about one element in particular they generally would talk about something that is 360 degree or more holistic in nature now when we are for example wearing a probably that kind of t-shirt or maybe with a blue jeans because i'm going wit
h my friends on uh maybe a vacation would i still want to wear my semi-rimless or let's say a complete rimless frame with black color i may want to change it because my occasion hair is more fun in nature so that is the reason why when we are talking about expressing something that is not only expressed by the dress codes it is also expressed by your facial features where the frame is going to sit and when you have your frame sitting on face you may want to probably try a round product why becau
se today when we talk about the latest fashion nielsen was actually talking about it i would buy some points from there and uh you know add on to that that you know when we are talking about the expression today the trend is vintage today the trend is geometries so that is the reason why people are coming to nielsen or maybe all the optometrists where they are asking for bigger frames you know the ones which are thicker in nature because if you see in fashion industry as well you could see a lot
of boot cuts or bell bottoms coming back so that is the reason when we are talking about expression it is not only about expressing a style it is about expressing an emotion the warmth uh you know so that is the reason why uh you know it is it has to be something with which is more 360 degree it cannot be only uh you know delivered on to style or only delivered on to uh onto onto science because then the experience is is half cooked or half half delivered so that is the reason why the experienc
e to deliver it completely 360 degree you may also want to move both necessity and fashion together so that is that is what i would want to rest my case as so then at the same time i would also want to summarize that you know like uh said earlier the observation is really important from the physiconomy perspective then you move on to understanding the personality then you move on to you know also uh understanding the the attitude of the person and then at the last is where you would have all the
observations all the things to talk about you know when you probably can give even the repetitions of what customer said you know you were denoting that that why are you recommending this kind of a product to the consumer so that is that is the reason why uh it is really important to kind of put things together and present it in a in a way that you know it becomes a holistic experience for the consumer so that is it from my side i would uh give my words to nilesh to uh uh you know to summarize
or you know to talk about yeah thank you so thank you so much mano i think that was really insightful i mean i personally learned so many new things definitely uh learned a new word physiognomy and and as i expected you know i i did expect that there would be a bit of science behind style and it seems that there is more than a bit of science in style right absolutely and i also like the last part where not last throughout the session you said that observation is one of the most important powers
and we need to use that from the style point of view and it came through while nielsen was talking as well uh from a clinician point of view also i think observation is very very important so to become a successful professional i think observation is one of the most important tools right uh let's get into the uh discussion part now and um before we take a couple of questions from the audience let me quickly introduce our panelists as well we have uh ananta lakshmi another lakshmi is currently he
ading the education and professional services division of assilor india we also have rushed patel he is the partner in nagarchashmagar ahmedabad on a little bit more about these two ananta lakshmi i think we know each other for many many years uh an excellent trainer in terms of ophthalmic lenses and her knowledge of the ophthalmic lens industry is just unparalleled we also have rishit rishit i know again very well because he at one point of time he was my student and he was his enterprising ski
lls were on display even when he was a student and his love for you know business and ophthalmic lenses and optical dispensing was evident there as well so i'm going to start with rashid actually rashid are you able to hear me you can unmute yourself yes yeah so just just uh not a specific questions but i just want to understand your views on you know the style and science part if you want to share your views or your experience um you know in your optical business in terms of how what is more im
portant and how do you go about it science and style as nelson and mano said that stylin and science should go together recently i had an experience as many of the kids come with glasses right now my first preference with the kids is let them choose the frame color and get them habituated with that because at the end of the day they are gonna wear the glasses so let them choose the frame color after that we try to choose how the frame is fitting on the nose or at the end of the year and regardin
g the science part we will tell this to the parents how these lenses or as the child is as it is doing classes online he's going to require a good anti-reflection or a blue filter block lenses so in this case for kids i usually give the first preference to the kids first for the selection of the color other than the parents deciding the frame for the kids so when when you allow the child to select a color you get a child's buy-in and the more compliant to wearing spectacles is it what you mean y
es he tries to wear it more often when he tries to get to choose the frame awesome so there's a bit of parenting uh issue here as well right there is a tip for parenting as well thanks thanks just quickly if you want to you know you share your experience through your chats with various practitioners and um you know people in business as well uh thanks malaysia i think wonderful talk by both of them uh just let me just uh in in short explain a customer journey basically when they come to a practi
ce the first thing uh they do is to go and select a frame okay so uh while they are actually looking it for a frame okay maybe it might be uh in terms of a style you know they may select a rimless or a full frame or a semi-remnants whatever be it you know right so you can actually blend no so you need to observe the uh customer right from the time he enters till the time he leaves so that is the way you can blend both so for example just giving an example suppose he selects a roomless frame now
why does he select because he doesn't want others to know that he's actually wearing a spectacle lens he wants the lens to be on the frame to be invisible right so that is the reason why he selects a roomba stream now that can be a style point of view so when you're going to talk about lenses okay to this person you know you you and suppose in case he's got a high power or something like that you know some mid-range power so if you want to pitch in a high index to him okay so what you can do is
you can complement you know he's already taken a style you can okay always compliment saying that for the for the type of frame you have selected i'm going to complement you with the high index lens and then put in the science pattern so we need to be a very uh practical we need to customize the way we communicate uh whether it's a style or the signs so you can either go for the style and then blended this signs or you have the science and then you blend it with these time so for example the ano
ther example which i would give you is the progressive lenses which manners in now in terms of uh what we talk about is the science we know all of us know that progressive lens is very good for us because you get clear vision all distances and to be very uh short a progressive lens is something uh very mimicking like our crystalline lens because in terms of accommodation uh uh the accommodation helps us to see at all distances to the age of 40 so you're going to complement with a similar optics
in terms of lenses which is also going to help you to see at all distances so that may be the science part but what is the style part like how we he rightly said that it's going to be very i mean it's not going to have any lines and no jump effect uh it's going to be giving a loop of a single vision lens so this is going to be a style part so you need to have a good blend of style as well as science no i i think uh there may be some few exceptions but in our practice most of the time whom we see
we can try to have a good balance between style and sense uh and style and science and how we portray to our customer is what is the magic so basically even even if you pick one track at some point of time you have to incorporate the other track only then it makes a complete uh recommendation so you want beauty with the brain you don't want just one of them okay you want to say something you're raising your hand yeah i just have a small question to both the practitioners and nielsen let's say l
ike as a practitioner you would recommend something and if the patient wants a different style for example let's say a minus 10 or something like that in a rimless you know how do you try and you know match match your kind of recommendations and convince the person what's what's better for them whether it's the full frame or a rimless that's number one number two is especially prescriptions for a more wrapped you know sports kind of a frame there are certain things that we have to advise as prac
titioners so how would you go about you know mixing that style with whatever your recommendations are as a practitioner who wants to go first that's fine okay sure thank god yeah so essentially um with the rimless example even the wrap i like to preempt or really use your clinical knowledge to to sort of tell the patient what they will expect okay so from a appearance of their spectacles and visually as well okay so you say to the person okay you're going to have a high you've got a high prescri
ption you have a rimless you're not a rimless frame the edge thickness will be visible with an edge thickness what that means is your peripheral vision will be affected and you know even i'll try and demonstrate that as i draw a picture you know draw the hourglass and show them what it would look like and you know then talk to them about other options as well sort of um really so that there's no surprises when they pick up their glasses you've really given them your expert knowledge and it's up
to them to whether they proceed with that and and the same with high wrap frames as well like you know what i often say to people who choose a higher wrap frame with a with a fairly high prescription one of the things i say to them is that when you are using your glasses you'll notice things in your periphery will move at a different speed to things in front and that will often feel you'll sometimes feel a bit off balance and you'll feel uncomfortable so it and and so really i say to look in my
professional opinion i feel that these won't be suitable for you but ultimately it is up to the patient so really is to advise them sometimes you advise them as strongly as possible and almost take them away from that option um but really just so they're informed and you've you've given them the the clinical perspective um rashid do you have anything else yeah you want to add no nissan perfectly said that usually in my practice with minus 10 i usually don't recommend at all or if the patient wan
ts it i say directly say no to them strict parenter the brag thing i usually prescribe till minus four or minus five not above that because after that nielsen said the speed at which he goes the difference in the speed it will be much more okay so just one quick point blank question to rush it and mano and quick answer the glasses you are wearing right now more of style or more of science both what about you mine is both yours [Laughter] so i'm going to take a couple of questions from the audien
ce and one of them is about you know progressive addition lenses maybe rishi and um nielsen you can take it again and anantha you can add as well um the question is many user complain about that they want to use progressive addition lenses but they fail because of you know free uh difficulty in adaptation have you are you still uh facing such challenges in your mind would you like to go first rishi yeah rishi maybe you can go first indian perspective first last few years it has been very less du
e to the adaptation thing because we usually tell the patient what all things are to be taken care of before giving a progressive lens right so you are not facing too many issues right now so is it because of the designs are improving or is it because the patients are already aware and they are prepared to you know give in that much time for adaptation what would you as um you know attribute this to maybe nixon you can also add after the i think it's because of more of a softer design and it kno
ws how much time it will take usually to adopt it okay you want to add yeah one of the key things that we do is we actually for new progressive wearers and people that have had problems previously i'd book an appointment when they collect the glasses um to actually fit them to them and again inform them as much as possible so you tell them what to expect how you should be using them and then you take control of that situation so when they come to pick up their glasses you put the glasses on them
and you say okay look in the distance tilt your head back what do you see tilt your head down what do you see move the book to the right look to the left so really then they start to get that understanding of how the lenses work but for us booking an appointment for collection of new progressive wearers um is a really little bit different to it so it's it's a little bit of a differentiator to the competition it's a nice idea as well awesome so you think the uh patient education and demonstratio
n these are the things probably helping you a hundred percent because i i notice there's some questions about competition and whatnot and you know the markets are very competitive but yeah if you can really demonstrate your knowledge it sets you apart you know a lot of the businesses are high volume they don't have time to speak to customers or patients about all of these things if you are able to talk to them and they feel really comfortable they take your recommendations on board they trust yo
u um so you know those are really really key things absolutely i think that's an important insight and important tip to all the practitioners as well so ananta in your experience are you um getting too many complaints nowadays what is your experience from the other side uh i i mean i think the question partly has been answered but you should ask me the first thing is yes uh today the complaints have reduced quite a lot one uh to one the dispensing techniques are really picking up today practitio
ners are very confident about fitting progressive lenses that is point number one second today whatever lenses we have have got a lot of uh technologies being built in it which is basically for the current wearers uh which has inbuilt of their lifestyle and their expectations also and a third important thing is we always uh encourage the ecps to do a demonstration like how memes and rightly said especially if they are the first time bearers of progressive lenses it's very important for us to tel
l them how the lenses actually work because when we have explained uh during our uh this thing we just talked about in distance intermediate and here for a customer this makes no sense so you nearly need to explain to them give them the demonstration how the lenses would work and i think the demonstration plays a very very important portal to get their satisfaction you know so when they leave your clinic they should really know how this lenses would work i think that is where the things work wel
l for them thanks so much and i think so one important aspect is the knowledge and skills of the practitioners are also improving and maybe escilor and including ananta shahjan and i think nielsen you and i also can take a little bit of credit for that shall we after doing so many maps and events and everything so yeah yeah of course so um lakshmi are there any questions you want to pick from the facebook chat because we are about there now paula i wanted to ask one question i thought we'll take
that last one and i want to remind everybody that there's a survey which they need to fill to get the certificate and then scholar your question yeah hi everybody so uh this is to all the panelists and the speakers uh what are your thoughts about uh dispensing multiple pairs so maybe uh manufa can start because the style aspect does you know take place in this and then soon and others can chip in thank you it's an important question for uh two very valid reasons the the first reason being that
you know most of the time when we talk about dispensing multiple frames it may not be only from the point of style it can also be from the point of first time usage a lot of people for example who are not in a habit of wearing a spectacle it becomes really difficult to kind of you know asserting that you know where have i kept my frames probably i would forget it in my office or maybe in the car seat or probably at my home so multiple dispensing is not only helping the consumer change the style
but also ensures that you know he doesn't compromise on its vision on his vision so that is the reason why you know uh the first and foremost practice that must and must be followed is to do with the fact that you know everybody who's wearing it for the first time should be offered a second pair which probably should be a spare then the second aspect that comes in is of course of the stylistic elements so we are not wearing similar clothes every day you know not like mark zuckerberg for sure bec
ause he wears the gray t-shirts all the time but yes more importantly like i said that you know i'm not wearing a blue t-shirt every day or probably a white shirt every day or something like that so if we are trying to change our appearance based on the occasion why not eyeglasses because eyeglasses like i said conveys a personal image so when it is conveying a personal image i may want to portray a different image because it's a different scenario for me so you know in case if i'm a jovial pers
on otherwise you know wearing maybe a thick frame red color you know and if i'm going for an interview i may not want to portray that because i probably want that job so that's the reason so i would kind of keep changing the uh the environment and hence i should keep changing my products as well it could be absolutely in line with the attire so multiple selling is really important the bigger worry is that we are hesitant that we may lose on the first sales so that is the reason why sometimes we
do not end up pitching for the second one so uh so i think you know the timing becomes really important in this case that when are you approaching the consumer for that and what are you trying to explain are you trying to explain that we are another product service provider or we are trying to ascertain that there is another need that you may not know right now and we are trying to put that need forth and that is why you should look up for buying another pair so that is that is why i would alway
s say that you know it is really important to talk about multiple products you know i generally have this notation when i when i say that if you are dispensing an optical frame you should leave the consumer with a question and that question is that you know we know that we are in a geographical uh placement where we have the highest exposure of ultraviolet as a country and i'm sure that you know since you know this you must be wearing a sunglass whenever you're out in the sun even if it is let's
say an optical uh frame so you know even then we have a possibility of making uh an optical sun so you know but then wearing it is really important so because we are placed in such a country where we are getting a lot of early press biopic cases early catra cases it is because of one of the reason is because we are highly exposed to ultraviolet so do we put it like this so putting it right is also very important so that is what i would say on this and leave the dice to you yeah um yeah i comple
tely agree and tying the clinical findings or you know what we mentioned before about sun exposure to what you see on the eye but again to emphasize the history taking to identify patients needs if they are um playing the piano or they do to more than two or three hours of computer work a day yeah they're presbyopic already that's three pairs of glasses just there i mean they can't really progressives they could possibly use for playing the piano but then you say well look if it's something you
enjoy you want to optimize your vision here's a solution and often i'll get a trial frame frame and i'll demonstrate that to them i'll say okay if you want an extended focus lens with a low shift or put the full ad in put a -075 on the top and show them that that range extends and say with a progressive lens you are great for everyday use go to the shops do you want to read a price you want to pick up your phone you want to see far away but then so progressive lenses are great but then if you th
ink about what you if you're going to sit in front of a computer for two or three hours a day extended focus lenses are great um and then you know you might even have a single vision for the for the piano for instance or at extended focus so um really that is absolutely critical in my mind is to you know i've had a patient last week that bought five pairs of glasses i didn't expect it but i said here are your options um makes you worry about if you got your refraction right but um you know but o
therwise yeah it's uh you know you sometimes feel like you can lose some more hair about that but it's it's more um you know those are really critical things around multiple pairs yeah and i would probably slip in a pair of contact lenses as well last option okay or are we done with this question yeah i think uh great session thank you nielsen thank you manav i think everybody kind of enjoyed uh the session and we'll also be sharing the recording of the session with everybody that you know it re
aches as many people as possible you know we have a beautiful learning platform called leonardo so probably you know all the eye care practitioners you know who uh wants to have an access to this kind of information can actually use this as a platform to learn a lot more not only about science but also a little about style awesome so i think thank you mano thanks uh nielsen all the way from down under thanks rishit and anantha i think i i thoroughly enjoyed this session and i'm sure those who ar
e who have attended they would have enjoyed as well please submit your feedback form the survey form that's important and um gentlemen and ladies we had a wonderful time so one takeaway message probably uh that you know style and science they are two sides of the same coin so yeah it's not like two different things every time you have to consider both you cannot just pick one and go ahead with that i think we need to have a wonderful blend of these two to have a successful practice as well as a
successful patient experience or consumer experience right so let's leave you on that note all the variables guys take care of yourselves and happy dispensing thank you thank you thank you thank you thanks a lot
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