New Innovative Low Vision Rehabilitation Department

14 February 2018

A new innovative Low Vision Rehabilitation Department has just been established at MITERA Hospital, making it the first in a private and public hospital in Greece.

The Department is headed by Stylianos D. Karditsas, PharmD, MD, PhD – University of Glasgow, ophthalmic surgeon at MITERA Hospital and a specialist in Pediatric & Adult Low Vision Rehabilitation. Dr Stylianos D. Karditsas has long experience abroad (specialization and PhD from the University of Glasgow, Postgraduate Fellowship at Harvard University), as well as in Greece, where he has been making strides in the field of ophthalmology.

The new MITERA Low Vision Rehabilitation Department meets the highest international standards and offers its services to patients with low vision impairments (around 15-20% of the general population). Low vision is defined as the level of vision below which the patient cannot accomplish certain everyday tasks and activities, and conventional glasses, contact lenses, medication or surgery cannot improve the situation. Visual impairment may present not only as reduced visual acuity and/or visual field loss, but also as impaired contrast sensitivity, photophobia, metamorphopsia, impaired color perception, impaired depth perception, reduced dark adaptation, binocular dysfunction, impaired visual  perception or as a combination of these. 

Patients with low vision can significantly improve their quality of life through vision rehabilitation, where they can be trained on how to use and maximize their residual vision and/or learn alternative strategies and techniques so they may function more effectively.