Investigating Laser Eye Surgery For Astigmatism A Comprehensive Analysis

The main aim of the report was to investigate the eye functionality and how laser eye surgery works to treat astigmatism. This investigation was split into eight sub-units which are discussed in detail. These sub-units are Light refraction, light spectrum, eye structure and function, astigmatism, excimer laser, mechanics and photo ablation. Additionally, in order to understand the procedure itself, to comprehend how astigmatism issues arise and how the LASIK procedure works, this essay provides a comparative view of these concepts as they apply in the sub-units.

In light refraction, the lens and the corneal part of the eye which is found in the frontal section of the eye deflects light rays onto the retina which then converts the light signals and carry to the brain’s visual cortex. Similarly, contact lenses and spectacles do the same job of refracting light on to the eye in a specific way by a specified lens to suit the individual. The Light spectrum is the colours of the rainbow and the colour white is a mixture of all the colours combined. Light travels in specific wavelengths which are measured in nanometres and every colour emits a specific wavelength and only wavelengths of 400-700 nm are visible to the human eye.

The third section of my report, discusses the eye structure and function, and mainly focuses on the cornea as it plays a significant role in astigmatism and the LASIK procedure is also performed on the cornea of the eye. The eye functions can be split into 4 main parts, light rays enter the eye lens and cornea refocus these onto the retina which then is converted into electrical signals, this is then carried to the brain and that is how vision is enabled. Rods and cones are densely found at the back of the eye because they are major components of the human eye as they convert light signals (raw data) into electrical impulses. The normal retina contains about 120-150 million rods and they are less sensitive to colour perception but more low and high levels of light (like brightness) and cones are more sensitive to visual acuity, detail, and colour.

I have then investigated some common eye conditions focusing mainly on near-sightedness and far-sightedness as they are the most common and are similar to astigmatism. This occurs due to the corneal shape which then refracts light rays onto different parts of the retina causing blurred vision and in normal vision light rays are perfectly reflected onto the macula where the rods and cones are found. Astigmatism has also been discussed in detail it is the main topic of the report. It concludes that astigmatism is genetic in some cases and in some it arises with age and caused by an irregular shaped eye (more like a rugby ball than a football shape).

I discussed the LASIK procedure and compared it to the other similar variations of LASIK, which also use an excimer laser to reshape the cornea. Furthermore, I investigated the procedure and I split it into three sections (pre-procedure, procedure, and post-procedure) to exactly describe and explain what happens before, during and after the LASIK Procedure. I have then compared the costs of the different type of procedures by making a table and pie charts. And it shows that LASIK is the cheapest method.

I have investigated the Excimer laser and mechanics to understand the photo ablation process, being the most crucial part of the LASIK procedure to correct astigmatism. The laser emits a specific ultraviolet narrow wavelength beam composed of specific gases. The specific mixture of Gases determines the wavelength and for corneal tissue, 193-nm is the most optimum wavelength as it is well absorbed by proteins, glycosaminoglycans and nucleic acids present in the cornea. Also known as a cool laser and does not cause any thermal damage to the surrounding tissue, reducing chances of implication. The photo ablation process is a permanent solution for refractive errors as it permanently breaks down organic compound reshaping the cornea.

In my report, I have incorporated three different types of resources: reliable websites, scientific journals, and videos from a reliable ophthalmologist. I used internet explorer and google to find reliable websites and mostly used optometrists’ official websites. These websites provide reliable source of information and links to different company websites since optometry and LASIK procedures are very popular. Secondly, I used the Caledonian library website to access scientific journals and was relatively straight forward and to access with aid of my private student credential information. Finally, I used videos from YouTube which were also relatively easy to find due to the topic being LASIK and it was easily comprehensible due to the nature of the target market, being the general public. The videos were made for the public with eye conditions and specialized doctors explained and described the procedure in order for them to consider the treatment.

Initially, my study was focused on laser surgery. However, during my development stage, I discovered that the subject was vague and required refinement and focus on a specific type of surgery which I narrowed down and settled on a specific type of eye condition and a specific type of laser eye surgery (LASIK). The narrowing down of the topic made the subunit topics choices a bit easier and more relevant to the topic. I also added more information to the introduction as I never gave enough information in the plan introduction about the background and history of the refractive procedure and laser treatments. I added more details into what will be covered in the investigation and added the extra subtopics which will be discussed in the report. I also investigated light refraction and the light spectrum which wasn’t a part of the original plan. I added these subtopics in because I thought they would be relevant to the investigation, and would help the reader understand how the eye perceives lights and interprets light signals, and how light refraction is curial for spectacles and also how the eye functions. This is because some parts of the eye refracts light and the most common eye conditions arise due to light not being refracted and also the point of LASIK procedure is to alter the shape and ultimately refracting light. For all the reasons before, I think it was a good idea to cover it and I believe I covered it sufficiently with relevance to the aim of the study.

Despite changing the aim of the graded unit, the aims were quite similar though they were more specified from the initial aim in the plan. As a result, I was able to keep some of the sub-topics like how the eye works and changed the subunit to eye structure and functions and also decided to investigate certain parts like the cornea and the rods and cones as I felt they played a big part in eye functioning and LASIK procedure. Common eye conditions were briefly highlighted, though they could have been explained in detail and diagrams added to develop a clear explanation as to how myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism interact. I also discussed in detail about astigmatism which was not a part of the original plan because I focused the investigation to treat astigmatism with the LASIK procedure than vaguely discuss the three common eye conditions. Furthermore, the next subtopic covers the costs of the different variations of the LASIK procedure. The comparison of cost was added to provide a comparative assessment and statistical evidence detailing the variations in the costs of LASIK procedures.

The original plan was based on four big subtopics, but I decided to add more subtopics and I removed effectiveness and treatment subtopic. I decided to focus on topics specifically related to the Lasik procedure instead of PRK method and LASIK. I dropped PRK due to how similar it was and I believed it was more beneficial to talk about LASIK procedure in detail. I therefore sought to investigate in detailed step by step process how the procedure works and split it into three categories; pre, post procedure and the procedure itself. Dropping PRK was aimed at avoiding repetition and allow for focused study on laser mechanics and photo ablation. More diagrams could have been added to explain the excimer laser more efficiently, but I think overall, I investigated the laser sufficiently enough to explain how the laser works.

One of the major strengths of my report is the topic itself. The topic was on LASIK which is a highly commercialized popular procedure and the information about the procedure is easily obtainable due to the number of trusted commercial websites. In comparison, information on other topics like viruses and cancer treatment is obtainable in fewer websites as it only affects a smaller number of the population. Whereas astigmatism and common eye condition affect a high number of personals throughout the world. The topic was also a strength because a lot of information is more likely to be focused on surgery that was discovered like 40 years ago (being around for a long time) compared to other recent discoveries like gene therapy. The topic was associated with the eyes and vision on why astigmatism arises and why common eye conditions arise; there are no unknown factors which have not been discovered yet compared to other body parts like the appendix is an area which is yet to be explained by scientists with certainty. Additionally, vision is a crucial part of daily life, the eye parts and how they function have been discovered a long time ago and information was easily accessible.

The second strength of the report is the good structure throughout the entire report since it was split into 8 subtopics and each of them had a separate paragraph and throughout the paragraphs, they were well linked together. When subtopic had to be expanded and certain parts had to be discussed in detail, I split them into a separate heading and paragraph. For example, in the eye structure and function, I made a separate paragraph and heading dedicated to the cornea and rods and cones and also stated my reasons clearly and reiterated a lot to allow the reader to follow the report with more ease. Each subtopic was kept relevant to the topic and aim of the study and they followed a good chronological structure.The presentation of diagrams was the main weakness of my paper. This is because as per the topic more diagrams could have been incorporated in the report. In some subtopics I Included diagrams, for light refraction, light spectrum, eye function and the cornea. The diagrams were good and labelled but were not referenced. And the other subtopics I failed to include diagrams to explain the terms and subtopics especially for rods and cones (especially to explain the structure of them and where it is exactly found), common eye conditions (to show which parts the light are refracted to and how the condition arises as a result) and astigmatism as well, which was very relevant to the main aim and investigation. More diagrams could have been added to describe how the laser works in the laser mechanics sub topic and the photo ablation process. Also, the diagram I used to compare cost of the various procedure I could have used a better type of chart to compare costs. This cost me a lot of marks which could have been avoided by using a different type of diagram.

My other weakness was language exhibited by numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes throughout the report in various subtopics. Also, the language used was not up to the level expected as a result I lost all my marks. Spelling mistakes were also present in the opening sentences, in the rods and cones sub topic which I wrote 'rods are cones' instead of 'rods and cones'. This spelling mistake changes the meaning of the context significantly and could have been avoided. In the first paragraph of the light spectrum I made numerousgrammatical and spelling errors which changed the meaning significantly “it is with these waves we able to depreciate colour” this made no sense as depreciate was used in place of differentiate thus caused serious confusion to the reader. Also used a poor word choice in the photoablation section I said, “in the common eye condition section below”, instead of “previously”. In the cornea subtopic I also used the wrong measurement units for the measurement of the cornea, I wrote micrometres instead of nanometres (in the second paragraph of the cornea to describe its thickness) and in the same section in the last paragraph I wrote excise instead of excess. In the Lasik section I wrote “most elective procedure” rather than selective missing out the S changed the meaning of the sentence.

I have used various research methods to investigate my topic and gain information; some were good sources and some not so much and I would definitely add some new research methods in if I were to do another report. I only used trusted websites, scientific journals and videos. However, I think using a book would have been reliable for some aspects than website information’s as books are checked by editors and publisher before getting published and also are checked for plagiarism before official publication.

The videos that I used were from www.YouTube.com and the good thing about using YouTube was that the videos were easy to find regarding the topic and one positive thing about using YouTube was that you can assess how good the video is as they have a lot of feedback like comments, likes and dislike and shares and also a description of the video below the player. I referenced three videos in the article some of the authors and channel were better than others, one by the author of Adel Abdelshafik was less trust worthy as it wasn’t verified and the channel had 14,000 subscriber and 252 likes and had no description about the author and the channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAtYktgoMKgdCRxiYoVXgcg). Whereas, the other two channels, professor Dave explains had 442,000 subscribers and 1200 likes and nucleus medical media had 1.6 million subscribers and 3200 likes.

Using scientific journal was one of the best methods I used to find information, being highly trustworthy and accurate as it were uploaded onto the university library and the language was of a high standard and all the works were well referenced and were written by scholars. I have used four scientific journals in the report. The journals by Edward E. Manch, Tohru Sakimoto, A.Lemp and Micheal Lawless were very useful and helped to gain substantial amount of information for writing the report especial for some of the subtopics like the introduction; eye structure and cornea/rods and cones, common eye conditions and astigmatism and why it arises, LASIK, and photoablations process. Scientific journals were very effective as they give a lot of information and are well analysed and some sections of it were similar to the aims of my investigation and were very useful.

Websites were another source which was used and probably the easiest one to access using the google toolbar. Most relevant to the item searched always shows up first and after browsing through a couple of different websites I was able to choose the websites that I felt were trustworthy. Usually sites that end in “.org ” or “.edu ” are more trusted than.com as their information and sources and authors are mentioned and verified. Websites are also well presented out and user friendly. I used two websites and one more website to compare costs which I will talk more about in the paragraph below. Science learn website helped me a lot with two subtopics mainly light refraction and light spectrum and they also had a video which was explained by Sanderson to demonstrate how light refraction works. Hyperpysics helped me with the rods and cones section and contained the author information below the information on the website (Nave).

I also used one website which contained “.co.uk ” in the URL (https://lasereyesurgery.cliniccompare.co.uk/the-average-cost-of-laser-eye-treatment), this is was the worst website I used as I could not find an author for the article and also the prices weren’t as concise since they did not use average figures but used the minimum price figures and I used this information to make pie chart in the report in the comparison of prices on variations of procedure compared to LASIK. However, they did have good analysis of why the prices varied and a good explanation to back up the data and was compared very well and had a good presentation.

Difficulties encountered and how they were handled

One of the difficulties I encountered was referencing, I did my whole report but did not take a note of my resources used nor did I reference the information I was writing at the development stage. This caused a lot of difficulty when it came to referencing my work at the end of the report. I tackled this problem by using my history information on my browser which allowed me to find all the websites, videos, and scientific journals I had used, and the information was easy retrievable and were able to be back tracked and referenced successfully.

Another difficulty I faced was understanding the LASIK procedure and how the common eye conditions arise and how the light spectrum works and light refraction, laser mechanics work and the photo ablation work there were terms and procedures I couldn’t understand easily from looking at scientific journals and related websites. I tackled this problem by doing watching videos to under the LASIK procedure and also the photo ablation process works and how the cornea and rods and cones work watching videos from experts whom simplify and demonstrate the procedure allowed me grasp the concept and widen my understanding of things that scientific journal couldn’t do as I’m a more visual person this aided me a lot and also any terminology I couldn’t comprehend I looked up various websites to grasp the meaning.

I have not been taking higher education since my last university where I completed two years and I gained information on how to reference. However, since doing my report, I have developed my skill of Harvard style referencing. I learnt that the bibliography is assorted into alphabetical order of author name if done using word referencing menu, which reduced some of the headaches I previously had in writing it out manually and putting it into alphabetical order myself. Also inserting the same citations to different paragraphs were made easy “A.Lemp, 1998” a scientific journal was referenced in the cornea subtopic paragraph one and two. The eye structure paragraph 3 and astigmatism the citations were easily inserted as you can use the insert citation button on word which then shows you previously used citations which then can be reinserted.

Time management was another skill which I developed when doing the report. I left annotating diagrams and contents page, and analysis of the graph for comparison of costs and conclusion for the last day before submission and I realised that I had to make strategy and manage my time to maximise marks and I decided to write the conclusion first as it contained the most marks and then did the other tasks even though the other task which were left were not done as accurately the conclusion was well written and I gained all my marks for it and was smart choice and also Improved my time management skills as result of leaving things to last minute and I learned prioritising the tasks in order of marks attainable.

Paraphrasing was another major skill which is important to writing to the report I only had a 14% plagiarism, and this is very low compared previous reports at my previous university. It is a skill I have developed as I was looking at lots of resources for information for my report as I did not conduct any experiments or had any prior knowledge and I had to investigate and paraphrase everything in the report. I learnt new techniques such as looking at synonyms of words in the dictionary which helped me re word phrases without copying it. Also, another technique I used was to read the source info and then memorise it as much as I can and understand them and then without looking at the original text I typed them from memory and it was my own words these techniques that I developed allowed me to get my plagiarism down to 14% . Another technique was I kept on resubmitting to Turnitin again and again to get the plagiarism down each time, this is a skill I learnt from my peers who were submitting reports as well.

As I am studying biological sciences and one of my main subjects where human body and structure and focusing my topic partly on eye structure and functions and investigated the eye structure and function it improved my knowledge in this area especially all the parts of the eye and even other subtopics like the LASIK procedure and astigmatism increased my knowledge on a common procedure which takes place every day and as some members in my family suffer from astigmatism like my grandparents and my girlfriend. I feel that my knowledge has increased, and I can explain to them the procedure educating them and increasing their knowledge in order for them to make their own choice to choose LASIK or not.