Your patients who are about to turn 40 may not exactly want to be reminded about impending middle-age, but they do need to pay attention to their changing visual needs. To help inform them, Alcon has created 40th birthday cards you can send to patients. The cards describe presbyopia, encourage patients to get an eye exam and promote the Dailies Total1 product line. You can download a PDF of the card here for sharing.

It’s part of a public awareness campaign Alcon calls Project Presbyopia. According to the company, only 30% of people in a recent survey said they made an appointment with their eye doctor to determine the cause of their vision changes. After being informed about multifocal contact lenses, 59% said they were likely to make an appointment, Alcon says. 

Project Presbyopia hopes to address barriers that arise from the public’s relatively poor understanding of vision and the challenges of using medical jargon. Alcon will roll out educational resources via traditional and social media to engage consumers and eye doctors in a conversation to address misinformation. In addition to the birthday cards, another such item is a humorous video where people mispronounce or misunderstand the word ‘presbyopia,’ available here.

Optometrists can encourage their presbyopes to learn more about presbyopia at Alcon’s consumer education site www.seenearandfar.com. Other professional resources can be found at www.alcon.com.