OUR VISUAL SYSTEM is put to work every day. While there are many lens options for the presbyopic contact lens-wearing population, most of them do not solve 100% of a person’s visual needs. Part-time wear of any contact lens may be perceived as a failure, but many patients are perfectly fine with it, especially those in the presbyopic cohort. There are many reasons for this.

Many patients work in a remote or hybrid-based setting and are fine with wearing their progressive addition lenses or computer prescription glasses while at home and working on a computer. Additionally, patients may choose to wear their contact lenses for specific tasks, like outdoor activities. Either way, consider taking a different approach with part-time contact lens wearers in your practice.

With all the factors considered, think about fitting every presbyopic contact lens wearer with daily disposable lenses if possible. This makes part-time wear even more convenient and appealing. With daily disposable lenses, patients can choose to wear their lenses exactly when they prefer to. This may be full time if they choose (and that is great as well), but consider these steps to recruit more part-time presbyopic wearers:

1. Offer contact lenses to every patient. Presbyopia is not easy, and patients are always looking for a variety of solutions that range from glasses to contact lenses to surgery to eye drops. In my experience, many of our patients who have never worn contact lenses prior to presbyopia tend to believe that they cannot wear them and have not placed much thought into wearing them.

Let these patients know that they are excellent candidates for contact lenses; you are going to start them in daily disposable multifocal contact lenses, which offer the most flexibility when deciding on wear time. Discuss how the lenses may not be perfect for everything they do, but that they will help their vision.

2. Utilize the fitting guide, which enables the highest level of success with presbyopia. Often during the fitting process, an eyecare professional will end up with two possible solutions: one contact lens combination that provides sharper distance vision, or another combination that provides sharper near vision.

This is when I tell my patients that these lenses are customized for their unique visual needs. Let them make the decision at this time. This allows them to wear their lenses when they want to. For example, they may want a little sharper near vision because they spend lots of time indoors and on the computer and that is when they would like to wear their lenses. But they are OK with not being able to see the jersey number of their favorite athlete when at a sporting event.

3. Staff will have a very important role in the fitting process. Staff members will need to be able to help with the application and removal training, as well as ensuring that there are a variety of trial multifocal contact lenses in stock, as each design has unique features that may help solve a specific visual need for each patient. Additionally, staff members will be critical in troubleshooting during follow-up appointments and phone calls.

Part-time contact lens wear is a successful fit. Don’t be shy about that—consider focusing on ways to grow that population. This does not mean turning a full-time wearer into a part-time wearer; it means turning non-wearers into part-time wearers.

Best of luck in recruiting contact lens wearers in 2023. CLS