Introduction: Life expectancy continues to grow worldwide, and an aging population in health care will be a growing group. Age-related changes in the eyes predispose to some eye diseases. These eye diseases may cause massive social and economic burdens if left untreated. Optometrists have the crucial role of prevention of these age-related eye diseases. In this study, age-related eye diseases are considered to include macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts, and dry eye related to normal aging. These diseases cause symptoms that strongly affect vision and quality of life.

Purpose: The Ethical Board of Optometry (OEN) in Finland made a project decision to order topic-based clinical guidelines. This study aimed to create evidence-based guideline recommendations for Finnish optometrists’ geriatric patient assessment and management.

Methods: This innovation project is a literature review analysis-based research project for Finnish optometrists’ geriatric patient assessment and management. It consists of a literature review and recommendations for a clinical guideline. The first phase was a literature search on existing guidelines and evidence-based literature on geriatric patient assessment and management. The second phase was to analyze and decide the main elements from the literature and existing guidelines. The third phase was to define the content and create a clinical guideline for Finnish optometrists for geriatric patients’ eye examinations. Literature searching was performed in the fall of 2021 and spring of 2023. PubMed and Google Scholar were used as primary databases. The search was limited to English or Finnish literature and mainly between 2013-2023.

Results: Based on the literature search, there were two results of this innovation project. The first is a literature review on primary age-related eye diseases. The second result is a clinical guideline for Finnish optometrists about geriatric patient assessment and management. After gathering and analyzing, the main elements could be divided into patient history, ocular assessment, ocular management, eye examination pathways, and age-related eye diseases. These elements were also divided into sub-elements. These elements formed the clinical guideline.

Conclusions: The result of this innovation project was to create a recommendation for a current clinical guideline for geriatric patient ocular examination and pathways. Aging is a massive societal burden, and timely preventive care is crucial. This clinical guideline aims at facilitating the work of optometrists and opticians.