As we continue to ponder how to remain systematic and consistent through our practices, I stumbled across this article.

It compares measurements of strabismus in different sized rooms, to see if the size of the room can affect surgical decisions.

It is only a small study, but the differences are actually quite substantial.

Here in Greenlane where I work, we have 3-4 different rooms that we share for our orthoptic assessments. They are all slightly different configurations and length. The room I work more out of is around 5 meters, not quite 5,50m. Our shorter room that we try not to use much for strab measurements at all (or anything else, really- it’s just an extra room for those very busy days and neuro-orthop sessions) is perhaps 3 m long at best, from patient chair to screen.

This hasn’t been detected as much of a problem between us, but it certainly confirms the importance of continuing to push for longer rooms whenever we are setting up new orthoptic satellite clinics, not only for more reliable visual acuity testing but also due to the importance of consistent strabismus measurements when planning for an upcoming surgery. We don’t do refraction here in our rooms but I would argue that would be another point to push for it.