The Annual Spectacle Makers’ Lecture

Last Updated on 28/09/2026

How do people with age-related eye conditions like glaucoma and macular degeneration see the world? How do they recognise faces, find something on a supermarket shelf, or cope with driving?

To find out more, we invite you to join us on Monday 2 November 2026 for the annual Spectacle Makers’ Lecture. This will be given by Professor David Crabb, Professor of Statistics and Vision Research at City St George’s, University of London.

The Lecture is taking place at 18.15 in the Royal Society of Medicine’s Guy Whittle Auditorium (at 1 Wimpole Street, London W1G 0AE).

Professor Crabb will be speaking about The Patient’s View: Quality of Life and Driving in Age-Related Eye Disease. We still know relatively little about how different levels of vision loss affect a person’s ability to carry out everyday tasks, especially driving. One approach is to measure patient performance in controlled laboratory tasks. Another is simply to ask patients themselves. The latter can be especially revealing, helping to demystify assumptions about how people perceive the world with progressive vision loss.

Professor Crabb will argue that understanding everyday impacts is vital for clinical care and trials – and that outcomes should reflect what matters to patients, not just what happens on an eye chart or in a vision test.

As well as the Lecture and audience Q&A session, tickets provide access to a post-Lecture reception, where the conversation will continue over drinks and canapés. Tickets cost £55, with discounted tickets for students.