Optometric Management caught up with Laura Periman, MD, at the Lumenis Accelerate Owner’s Summit in Chicago on August 28 to discuss what attendees could take away from the event, both in clinical pearls and workflows and in practice management lessons.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Optometric Management: Hi, I'm Sarah Fackler, managing editor of Optometric Management magazine, and I'm here with Dr. Laura Periman at the Luminous Accelerate event in Chicago. Dr. Periman, what are some takeaways that you are hoping attendees will gain from the sessions this weekend?

Laura Periman, MD: So first of all, I have to say I'm so impressed with the number of doctors who are here wanting to learn more about expert dry eye disease management. Most of the attendees here already have an OptiLight system, and what they're here to learn about is not only how to leverage it and how to apply it to more clinical situations in their own practices, but also explore how new technology fits into this. I'm talking specifically about the OptiLift technology.

This is unique radiofrequency plus dynamic muscle stimulation (DMSt) that's targeted and directed at lid laxity. Now, that may sound like an oculoplastics problem, but I beg to differ because when you're talking about lid laxity, it can mean a lot of different things; everything from the classic slow snapback and the classic lid laxity, to more subtle incomplete lid closure or poor strength when the patient is closing their eye and you're trying to force it open.

Incomplete blinking is another form of lid laxity and it really centers down to obicularis weakness and dysfunction. Well, with this technology, it's like getting a personal trainer for your eyelids to train that obicularis muscle how to contract fully, properly stay closed at night, and blink more completely. We submitted data for review where we're able to quantify the improvements in incomplete blinking using the OptiLift technology.

OM: And what practice management takeaways do you have for attendees?

Laura Periman, MD: I think when you're looking at acquiring a new technology, it's always a little scary because it's a big capital investment, but this is where there's really good news. These patients are already in your chair. You've already treated their inflammation, their dry eye, their meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), their skin conditions with your OptiLight technology. Now you can come along with the OptiLift technology and address anatomic problems, weakness in the obicularis muscle, lid laxity, incomplete blink, all of these other features associated with many of our dry patients. In fact, there was a study showing about 60% of dry eye patients will have lid laxity issues. So those patients are already in your office, they're already in your chair, and it's really the only tool we have for addressing these lid weakness problems.

OM: And I think you said in the DMSt presentation that you can stack OptiLift and OptiLight together?

Laura Periman, MD: Yes, you certainly can. This is a common practice where we'll use the OptiLight to address the inflammation, the dry eye associated with MGD, the underlying dermatologic problems, which can drive ocular surface disease. And then the OptiLift technology can be done immediately after OptiLight technology to address that deeper muscular tissue quality component and look better in the process.