Subjects wearing a combination of centre-distance/centre-near MF CLs assessed over 5 minutes, 20 minutes, 3 hours, one week. Do subjective and objective scores improve with length of wear? Forty-five subjects enrolled in two practices - a clinical trial from The ADP Consultancy.

Although historically it has been thought that patients’ wearing Multi-Focal Simultaneous Image contact lenses would expect to benefit from being encouraged to wear these lenses in a real world situation for a week, during which a period of neuro-adaption occurs, and perhaps enhances measured clinical VA and their subjective impression. It would appear in this clinical trial this did not happen.
Measured clinical VA binocularly did not seem to change much between 5 minutes and 20 minutes, however it does seem that measured clinical VA binocularly does improve both for distance and near in a period between 20 minutes and 3 hours. None of the subjective measures for distance, near or general impression improved with a week’s wear.
It may well be thought a first day period of assessment over 3 hours would enable clinicians and patients to decide whether to continue or make lens changes at that point, rather than simply hoping for benefits from a week’s wear. This may have the benefit of reducing chair-time, reducing patient drop-out in the early stages of wear, helping the clinician to make earlier significant lens changes, controlling patient expectations and reducing their disillusionment with multi-focal lenses and their practitioner if vision is not as wished.

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• Net Enthusiasm (NE) was negative (-32%) for the MF lens after 20 minutes at dispensing and improved after 3 hours (+4%). Habitual soft contact lens (SCL) wears averaged +13% NE and habitual spectacles wearers averaged -8% NE.
• Near visual acuity (NVA) with the MF was better for each eye and for binocular vision after 3 hours compared to 20 minutes.
• Distance visual acuity (DVA) with MF was better for each eye and for binocular vision after 3 hours compared to 20 minutes.
• Subjective distance and near vision for MF averaged better at 20 minutes compared to 3 hours while ease of reading averaged better at 3 hours.