New soft lens wearers often leave the category for reasons that have little to do with the lens design itself. On October 14, 2026, the Centre for Ocular Research & Education (CORE) at the University of Waterloo released Issue 92 of Contact Lens Update, a free bi-monthly publication on handling education and contact lens dropout. Vision Monday covered the same release the next day. The issue is available at no charge on ContactLensUpdate.com.
What CORE released
Issue 92 treats handling as clinical care, not a quick chair-side demo. Daddi Fadel, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Waterloo and a CORE consultant, put it this way: “Effective handling education should be considered an integral component of contact lens care.” CORE’s announcement frames application, removal and lens care difficulty as drivers of frustration that can end wear early.
The opening editorial, co-authored by Meredith Bishop, OD, MS, FAAO (Director of Global Medical Education, Vision, at Johnson & Johnson) and Stephanie Wong, Ph.D. (clinical scientist at CORE and associate editor of Contact Lens Update), covers how handling trouble feeds dropout and offers ideas for tailored training, education and follow-up.
Sebastian Marx, Ph.D., of the JENVIS Research Institute in Germany, contributes the feature review. According to CORE, it reviews dropout drivers—visual dissatisfaction, handling, discomfort and ocular surface disease—and strategies to retain or re-engage wearers.
For the clinical insight section, CORE published a video series with step-by-step guidance on corneal, soft and scleral lens handling: insertion, removal, cleaning and safe care. The conference highlight, from Anna Sulley, compares same-material spherical and toric daily disposables and, per CORE’s summary, found similar comfort, wettability, fitting, handling and chair time over 10 hours. Those are CORE’s and Sulley’s reported findings, not independently verified here.
Contact Lens Update is supported by the educational arms of Alcon, CooperVision and Johnson & Johnson Vision. CORE notes the site also hosts a free resource library, IACLE training videos and a glossary.
Why it matters for opticians, assistants and students
Handling is often your job. In many practices, the person who teaches insertion and removal is an optician or ophthalmic assistant, not the prescribing doctor. Issue 92’s framing treats that teaching time as part of contact lens success, which matches common contact-lens training on hygiene, application, removal and care.
Confirm competence, don’t assume it. CORE’s message is to treat handling competence as something you confirm, not assume after one successful insert in the office. Clear instruction and follow-up are part of helping new wearers stick with lenses.
Scleral and specialty lenses raise the bar. CORE’s video set includes scleral handling, not only soft lenses. As specialty lens work grows, assistants who can coach patients through larger-diameter lenses become a practice differentiator.
Patient education is a repeatable skill. Clear instruction, confirming competence and offering follow-up are skills for exam prep and the job, and they show up in certification study as patient-care and contact-lens-care topics.
Know the free resources. ContactLensUpdate.com and the IACLE videos CORE points to are free study and staff-training tools. When refreshing a patient’s technique, a shared step-by-step reference beats improvising under time pressure.
A careful note on claims
This piece summarizes CORE’s and Vision Monday’s reporting on Issue 92. It does not claim any training method stops every dropout, and it makes no medical claims. Who should wear contact lenses, and which design, is the prescribing eye care professional’s call.
For opticians, assistants and students—including those preparing for ABO and NCLE exams—Issue 92 is a reminder that teaching handling is a hard skill in practice. Browse current exam prep courses for structured study alongside free industry updates like this one.
Studying for a certification exam? Our self-paced ABO, NCLE and COA courses are available now ($59 each, 6 months of access). See the courses
Sources
- core.uwaterloo.ca (opens in a new tab)
- visionmonday.com (opens in a new tab)
- contactlensupdate.com (opens in a new tab)
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