Prof Christian French - Consulting Neuro-Optometrist

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Kibworth Harcourt
Prof Christian French - Consulting Neuro-Optometrist

Private optometry practice, offering purely clinical examinations without sales pressure.

In addition to eye examinations and contact lens checks, I specialise in neuro-optometry and visual perception issues including brain injury, stroke and visual snow.

30/11/2025

Another great weekend of learning from .brain.body.boost about primitive reflexes in sunny Slaithwaite! 🧠

Primitive reflexes are fundamental to child development and lay the groundwork for all of the higher cognitive processes we need as we grow up. It's such a shame there isn't the awareness of this for new parents - the first 2 years of life are crucial.

When these reflexes aren't fully integrated, we dedicate far more energy and effort to accomplish everyday tasks which can then manifest as issues such as not being able to sit still, struggling with understanding left and right, being irritated by textures or labels in clothing. If we are struggling to make sense of the messages our body receives about itself, how can we then expect to interact efficiently with the world around us?

Additionally, strong emotional events or trauma causes us to retreat to the primitive brain, our basic survival mode, and these reflexes can re-emerge in later life.

Fascinating stuff, and it's something which needs sorting much more awareness!!

🧠👁️

18/11/2025

Back from a brilliant weekend of neuro-optometry hosted by BABO including a Visual Snow masterclass and the first step on my journey to Fellowship with the Neuro-optometric Rehabilitation Association. The speakers all did a great job - especially having flown over from the US specially so were battling jet-lag! Really inspiring stuff and looking forward to putting it into practice!

11/10/2025

Conference time!

I'm privileged to have been invited as a guest speaker at the annual conference in London - all about my work in vision, neuro-optometry and brain injury. Hopefully I can inspire some fellow clinicians into this exciting speciality!!

26/09/2025

Expert witness report writing 👀🧐🧑🏻‍⚖️

In my work with neuro-optometry cases, I can be asked to act as an expert witness by legal teams and provide reports relating to vision problems following brain injuries etc.

These are highly complex documents and if the case goes to court, you need to be confident that you have made a robust report that you can stand by and that it will help inform the court sufficiently in their decision-making.

The course today was extremely useful and supportive. The joys of virtual courses are you can attend from home; although I don't think my assistants Ted & Stanley were paying their fullest attention throughout given the snoring I could hear! 😸😸 (And yes, they have commandeered my desk drawer!)

24/08/2025

Lecturing is always a rewarding experience, but to be invited to an ex-student's wedding was such an honour. A really wonderful day (including catching-up with my lovely former colleague Amy) - many congratulations to Tom and Meaghan!! 🎉🎊🍾🤓🥰

15/08/2025

A great job of specialist lenses from glazing Peli lenses for a patient of mine.

Peli lenses are used for patients who have lost an entire half of their peripheral vision in both eyes due to damage within the visual pathway or visual cortex in the brain (homonymous hemianopia).

Imagine trying to walk down the street with half of your vision missing in both eyes - just the worry of continually bumping into others is enough to really cause significant anxiety.

Peli lenses act like wing mirrors and show movement in the missing area of peripheral vision whilst looking straight ahead, and since they're only needed when moving about, a nifty magnetic lens carries the Peli prisms with the other magnets embedded into the prescription lens.

Another happy patient! 🤓🧠

03/07/2025

I recently got to meet Prof. David Huang in my role at the University of Leicester. Prof Huang is the inventor of OCT, the 3D imaging technique which has transformed eyecare over the past 30 years. It was an incredibly insightful lecture that he gave as part of the Leicester Ocular Imaging Conference. As celebrities go in our profession, I would say that Prof Huang is definitely up there!

🤓🧐

06/06/2025

Something a bit different today! Auditory processing 👂🏻🧠🎧

When working with visual processing, we are essentially looking at sensory integration; how our brain collects information, combines it and makes sense of it coherently.

With vision processing disorders or following brain injury, the ability to accurately combine information can be disrupted and so it is important to consider the person (and their senses) rather than vision on its own.

Just like my work with retained primitive reflexes, it is important to be able to identify when there is a possible cause or interaction and signpost accordingly. It's very easy to want to stay in our lane and just focus on our own specialism.

20/05/2025

On Sunday I was at the College of Optometrists for the annual meeting of the (Ophthalmic Antiques International Collectors Club). I'm very passionate about celebrating and retaining the heritage of our profession; unfortunately not enough of us do it, but it's so important to be able to look back on where we have come from and how we got here! 🧐🤓 *Hint hint to any of my colleagues to join! 😉😁*

Of course I couldn't attend something like that without buying yet more old kit - but they will get a post of their own! For now I need to go and get ready for my Pint of Science talk tonight! 🍻🧠

16/05/2025

End of an era! 🤓🏥

Today was my last day working at Kettering General Hospital! Whilst it's very exciting building up my role at the University of Leicester and working on the new Master of Optometry programme, I will be really sad to not be working with my colleagues in the paediatric ophthalmology clinics at KGH.

It's been a really great experience, I have learnt so much and I cannot believe that it has been 5 years that I've been working here! Thank-you all for the lovely cards and gifts - I will really miss working with you!

23/04/2025

Pint of Science 2025 is here! 🍻🧠🤓

I'm really excited to have been invited back as a speaker at Pint of Science - and this year I shall be talking about my research into how retinal photographs can help us to identify risk of cardiovascular disease!

For those of you who were kind enough to participate as my research subjects during my PhD, you can see what your contribution has achieved!

You can book tickets at Pint of Science - Leicester, under the Fascinating Biology topic on Tuesday 20th May - hopefully I'll see you there!

https://pintofscience.co.uk/event/fascinating-biology

Address

60 Main Street
Kibworth Harcourt
LE80NQ

Telephone

+447971295152

Website

http://neuro-optometry.co.uk/

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