Long Canes and Orthoptists

Wednesday March 29th – Today we began our work with the long cane. We learned how to fit a cane to a person, how to hold it, and began using the 2 point touch technique. We practiced in easy areas inside the building and will be progressing outside tomorrow.

In the afternoon we went to La Trobe University, which is the school Laura and Simone attend. The head of the Orthoptic department, Dr. Kerry Fitzmaurice gave us a presentation on what an Orthoptist does here in Australia. I had never heard of an Orthoptist in the US but Kerry explained we do have them but their scope is slightly different in the US and you find them mostly in hospitals and Ophthalmologist offices. Here’s a brief explanation; Orthoptists are trained clinicians who diagnose and provide non-surgical management of visual system dysfunctions involving vision, eye movement, eye alignment, and binocularity. For example a child with a “lazy eye” might work with an Orthoptist to straighten the eye by patching the good eye, or they might teach a person with a central field loss a technique called “eccentric viewing” where the person uses their peripheral vision to see objects or read print. That’s a very simple explanation as our lecture today went for almost 3 hours! It was very interesting and Kerry is VERY enthusiastic and passionate about her profession.

This evening at dinner I discovered another Aussie meaning. “Pudding” Christine had told me we were having chocolate pudding for dessert tonight. Naturally I pictured the pudding we have in the US (a custard like substance), when she brought me dessert it was actually a hunk of cake in a bowl with a thick chocolaty sauce over it. Apparently this is what they call ‘pudding’. Whatever it’s called, it was delicious!