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Vision in Aging SIG Newsletter - June 2018
Dear Vision in Aging SIG members,

Here are a few announcements to update you on our Vision in Aging SIG and upcoming activities. There will be more news and updates to come. Feel free to contact me if any questions or concerns arise.

Sincerely,

John E. Kaminski, OD, FAAO
Chair, Vision in Aging SIG
Our 2018 Vision in Aging SIG Symposium
Our symposium for the 2018 Academy meeting in San Antonio will be held jointly with the Low Vision (LV) Section. The title of our symposium is "Not Just Another Driving Symposium: How Automated Vehicles and Advanced Driver Assistance Technologies Can Benefit our Aging Patients," on Friday, November 9 from 4-6pm at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. The idea for the topic and joint symposium came from ideas while attending the LV Section business meeting in Chicago. Eye care providers often face the challenge of advising patients to stop driving when they can no longer meet their state licensing requirements. Although older adults face a multitude of visual and non-visual reasons to stop or limit driving, there are more options on the horizon to safely assist or meet their transportation needs. We have an exciting panel of speakers on this innovative topic that we expect to get the interest of a number of doctors at the Academy meeting.

Moderators:
  • Vision in Aging SIG Chair, John Kaminski, OD, FAAO
  • Low Vision Section Program Chair, Ava Bittner, OD, PhD, FAAO
Speaker Panel:
  • Elin Schold-Davis, OT, Older Driver Initiative Project Coordinator, AOTA (escholddavis@aota.org). Will present an overview of older drivers, how to advise when a patient can no longer drive and how the interdisciplinary team can address mobility options for drivers and non-drivers.
  • Neil Charness, PhD, Professor of psychology, directs institute for successful longevity (charness@psy.fsu.edu). Will discuss visual and non-visual issues that impact driving function, present barriers to ADAS and AV and discuss predictors for acceptance and performance with ADAS and AV.
  • Ching-Yao Chan, PhD, Berkeley DeepDrive, Associate Director and California PATH Program manager, expert in automated vehicles, crash sensing and vehicular safety (cychan@berkeley.edu). Will present an overview of the technology behind AV and ADAS, discuss how aging drivers interact with the technologies, and role of eye care providers in advising our patients.
Shared Booth with Nutrition, Disease Prevention and Wellness SIG in Exhibit Hall
Our SIG is planning once again to share operating an exhibit hall booth with the Nutrition, Disease Prevention and Wellness SIG. We need to have our booth staffed during all exhibit hall hours, and ideally have methods to draw people to our booth. Our plan is to share one booth, split the coverage time, and display each other's handouts/materials, etc. I will be asking our SIG members to sign up to cover exhibit booth time once we know the time slots each SIG will take.
Vision in Aging SIG Google Group
The Academy has created a Google Group for our SIG to use. The Google Group will allow us to perform document sharing and discussions. When our SIG was formed just a few years ago, there was an interest in evaluating and recommending curriculum that related to aging and vision. We will explore if the SIG Google Group will help spur developing this interest further. We are looking for ways to use the Google Group to better connect our over 500 SIG members, so feel free to suggest topics or discuss interesting cases.
2018 Vision in Aging SIG Business Meeting
I’ll soon announce the time and date of our business meeting. Lunch will be served and all are welcome to attend. I’ll send minutes from our 2017 meeting when I know the business meeting time.