Newswise — The week of May 24 is Myopia Awareness Week. Commonly known as near-sightedness, myopia is the most common ocular disorder in the world, affecting an estimated 1.98 billion people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Recently, the Indiana University School of Optometry in Bloomington, Indiana, opened a myopia management clinic. If children are diagnosed early, several treatments are available that can slow myopia’s progress, lowering later risk of several eye diseases, including retinal detachments and glaucoma.

IU optometrist Katie Connolly is available to comment on these treatments as well as myopia in general. She is an associate clinical professor at the IU School of Optometry and the clinical chief of pediatrics/binocular vision services. In addition to training students in the classroom, she sees patients in the pediatric, binocular vision, myopia management and concussion care clinics at the Atwater Eye Care Center.

Additionally, she is the clinical director of See Better, Learn Better, a nonprofit pediatric eye care organization in Jamaica, and for the Special Olympics Opening Eyes in Indiana. She is the co-director of Vision for the Future, and through her work locally she screens over 2,500 children every year in Bloomington, Ind.

Expert areas: Vision, eye care, pediatric vision care, vision and learning, myopia management, amblyopia and strabismus