NEWS ITEM

Winners in the 2012 Naylor prize competition

Formal academic research in Optometry has now been in

progress for nearly 100 years. During that period, the scope

of Optometry and the range of instrumentation available in

a typical practice have expanded greatly. If Optometry is to

progress further, there is a continuing need for optometric

education to enable its graduates to conduct their own

research in both academic and practice environments, and

to assess and, where appropriate apply, the relevant

research findings of others. An important aspect of the

training in these areas is undergraduate dissertation and

project work. The Naylor Prize Competition, established in

memory of Manchester’s pioneering research optometrist

and teacher, Dr Jon Naylor, encourages such training by

offering a number of prizes to students from the optomet-

ric teaching institutions of the United Kingdom for the best

undergraduate project reports and dissertations. There were

six winners this year. Details of the winners and their work

are briefly summarised below.

In everyday life, we often make use of both vision and

hearing to locate stimuli of interest. How then is the infor-

mation from these two senses combined? How much

weight is given to each system under different circum-

stances? Some answers to these questions were sought by

prize-winning Bradford student Kiran Mushtaq in her

intriguing research report ‘Ventriloquism in audiovisual

spatial localisation’. By exploring localisation judgements

in cases where the two sensory systems provided discrepant

cues, she was able to demonstrate that her normal subjects

showed a greater trust in vision rather than hearing,

although hearing still played an important role.

Macular pigment is thought to reduce the potential dam-

age caused by shorter wavelength light in the central area of

the retina: it also acts as an antioxidant. The question arises

as to whether the characteristics of the macular pigment

distribution vary in groups with particular pathologies.

Subhi Bhatnagar, of the University of Manchester, explored

this possibility in his research project, entitled ‘A compari-

son of the population variation of macular pigment optical

density in non-diabetics and type 2 diabetics’. This involved

measuring macular pigment optical density in two groups

containing 29 type 2 diabetics and 13 non-diabetics, all

recruited in an optometric practice. Although this well-

conducted pilot study failed to reveal any significant differ-

ence between the two groups, there is obvious potential to

extend the work to larger groups divided for such factors as

age, gender, ethnicity, diet, pathology and other factors.

Flicker sensitivity is known to be affected by both age

and pathology, particularly glaucoma and hypertension. As

yet, however, development of this approach for screening

or other purposes has been inhibited by the limitations of

the available instrumentation and an imperfect knowledge

of the relevant characteristics of normal patients of differ-

ent ages. Important factors are stimulus luminance and

patient pupil size and ocular transmittance, since these

affect retinal illuminance. The project carried out by Emily

Dowse of City University, ‘Loss of rapid flicker sensitivity in

aging, glaucoma and ocular hypertension’, attempted to

provide some of this missing information, using a stimulus

system employing long wavelength light to minimise differ-

ences in crystalline lens and macular pigment transmit-

tance, and several levels of stimulus luminance. Although

only a pilot study, she was able to show that a ‘Flicker Sen-

sitivity index’ based on the measurements at several light

levels appeared to have real potential for reliably distin-

guishing those patients who had pathology.

The Meibomian glands are responsible for producing

meibum, the main component of the tear film lipid layer.

Meibomian gland dysfunction, usually obstruction of the

terminal duct, can cause increased tear film evaporation

and thus dry eye. Elaine Wilson, of Glasgow Caledonian

University, explored in her report ‘Infrared trans-illumi-

nation of human Meibomian glands’ the utility of a new

photographic technique for identifying drop-out in the

glands of the lower eyelid. This involved eversion using a

hand-held infrared light-emitting wand and photography

with a high-resolution camera. Drop-out was assessed

from the images both by visual inspection and by using

computer software. Among the 53 normal subjects stud-

ied, gland drop-out was found to increase with age,

although in this population there was no correlation with

contact lens wear or the results of the McMonnies ques-

tionnaire for dry-eye symptoms. The method appears to

be promising as a clinical tool in the diagnosis of Meibo-

mian gland dysfunction.

The last two prizes went to Cardiff students, each of

whom produced an excellent, balanced review of their cho-

sen clinical subject area. Helen Berry surveyed the impor-

tant, but sometimes neglected, topic of ‘The efficacy of

orthoptic exercises for convergence insufficiency’. Drawing

on a wide range of published material, this remarkably

well-organised report focused particularly on the utility of

home-based, free-space orthoptic exercises. It concluded

that a combination of sustained convergence (e.g. pencil-

to-nose, Brock string) and stepped disparity (e.g. dot card,

jump vergence) training was likely to be most effective.

Lauren Judge’s review was entitled ‘Connective tissue in the

© 2013 The Authors Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics © 2013 The College of Optometrists

Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics 33 (2013) 675–676

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Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics ISSN 0275-5408

glaucomatous human optic nerve head and peripapillary

sclera’. It covered the general characteristics of glaucoma,

the anatomy of the normal and glaucomatous nerve head

and the possibly less-familiar and rapidly-progressing sub-

ject of the biomechanics of the optic nerve head and peri-

papillary sclera. This well-illustrated and very thorough

review provided a comprehensive and up-to-date introduc-

tion its subject area.

All told, these and the numerous other high-quality

entries, which covered a wide range of topics in clinical and

basic vision, testified to the continuing effectiveness of the

university training in this area, and to the enthusiasm of

both the students and their supervisors. Many of the pro-

jects are likely to develop in the future into full-scale inves-

tigations. Some of the authors will either go on to

postgraduate work or, perhaps undertake research in their

own practices aided by the College’s IPRO (Innovation in

Practice-based Research for Optometrists) scheme. Such

activity will undoubtedly contribute to further advances in

Optometry and to the welfare of patients.

W. N. Charman, G. Heron and A. Whiteley

The Naylor Prize Committee

© 2013 The Authors Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics © 2013 The College of Optometrists

Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics 33 (2013) 675–676

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News Item WN Charman et al.