Myopia Management in Practice: How to Get Started

What this episode covers

For years, many optometrists viewed myopia management as a service reserved for specialty clinics or private practices with advanced technology. Today, that mindset is changing. In this Defocus Media conversation, Dr. Jennifer Lyerly sits down with Dr. Robert Africano and Dr. Janelle Sventek to demonstrate that successful myopia management can be implemented in corporate optometry, academia, and virtually any clinical setting. Through real patient experiences, practical communication strategies, and lessons learned from everyday practice, they show that slowing myopia progression doesn’t require a perfect practice—it simply requires a commitment to starting. Whether you’re looking to launch a myopia management program or refine your current approach, this discussion offers actionable insights that can immediately improve patient care and practice growth. In Partnership with CooperVision Table of Contents What is Myopia Management? Why Every Optometrist Should Offer Myopia Management Building Myopia Management Into Any Practice How to Talk to Parents With Confidence about Myopia Management You Don’t Need Axial Length to Get Started with Myopia Control Overcoming the Biggest Myopia Management Barriers The Future of Myopia Management Starts With One Patient What is Myopia Management? Myopia management is the proactive treatment of childhood myopia using evidence-based therapies designed to slow eye growth, reduce prescription progression, and lower the lifetime risk of vision-threatening eye disease. Why Every Optometrist Should Offer Myopia Management Dr. Robert Africano believes the conversation should no longer be about whether doctors should offer myopia management—it should be about why they wouldn’t. Caring for children means looking beyond today’s prescription and focusing on protecting lifelong vision. Dr. Jennifer Lyerly echoed that perspective, explaining that today’s FDA-approved treatment options allow optometrists to shift from simply correcting vision to practicing preventive eye care. Progressive myopia increases the risk of retinal detachment, glaucoma, and myopic maculopathy later in life. Instead of waiting for prescriptions to worsen every year, optometrists now have the opportunity to intervene earlier and potentially change a child’s visual future. Building Myopia Management Into Any Practice One of the biggest myths discussed was that successful myopia management requires expensive equipment or a specialty clinic. Drawing from his experience within a large corporate network, Dr. Robert Africano explained how standardized protocols, educational resources, and doctor training made implementation seamless across multiple locati...

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