Visual Disabilities in Children Including Childhood Blindness

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

We should address visual disabilities in children instead of only the childhood blindness. Diseases related to nutritional, communicable diseases should be addressed through strategies for achieving ‘Millennium Development Goals’. Facilities in African countries and countries with populations like India and China must be strengthened to address curable/preventable visual disabilities in children. Even though all efforts are done to strengthen, we will have 0.93 million blind children by 2020. Role of family physicians and paediatricians in trans-disciplinary approach to address visual disabilities in children is very crucial. If rational distribution of skilled human resource is not planned visual disabilities will not reduce effectively. Rehabilitation of visually disabled children should be integral part of addressing childhood blindness. All stakeholders including parents of children with visual disabilities should work together to achieve the goals.

Related collections

Most cited references 28

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Global data on visual impairment in the year 2002.

Serge Resnikoff, Donatella Pascolini, Daniel Etya'ale … (2004)

This paper presents estimates of the prevalence of visual impairment and its causes in 2002, based on the best available evidence derived from recent studies. Estimates were determined from data on low vision and blindness as defined in the International statistical classification of diseases, injuries and causes of death, 10th revision. The number of people with visual impairment worldwide in 2002 was in excess of 161 million, of whom about 37 million were blind. The burden of visual impairment is not distributed uniformly throughout the world: the least developed regions carry the largest share. Visual impairment is also unequally distributed across age groups, being largely confined to adults 50 years of age and older. A distribution imbalance is also found with regard to gender throughout the world: females have a significantly higher risk of having visual impairment than males. Notwithstanding the progress in surgical intervention that has been made in many countries over the last few decades, cataract remains the leading cause of visual impairment in all regions of the world, except in the most developed countries. Other major causes of visual impairment are, in order of importance, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and trachoma.

0 comments Cited 801 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Childhood blindness in India: a population based perspective.

L Dandona, R Dandona (2003)

To estimate the prevalence and causes of blindness in children in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. These data were obtained as part of two population based studies in which 6935 children

0 comments Cited 38 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Long-term visual acuity and its predictors after surgery for congenital cataract: findings of the British congenital cataract study.

Jugnoo Rahi, Melanie Chak, Angela Wade … (2006)

To report long-term postoperative visual acuity in a nationally representative group of children with congenital/infantile cataract and to investigate the factors associated with poor vision. All children aged less than 16 years in the United Kingdom who had newly diagnosed congenital/infantile cataract in a 12-month period during 1995-1996 (the British Congenital/infantile Cataract Study) were traced through their managing ophthalmologists. Outcome data were collected at least 6 years after diagnosis, by using specifically designed questionnaires. Ordinal regression analysis identified factors associated with postoperative acuity. Of 153 children who had surgery, complete data were available in 122 (85%). Median age at follow-up was 7 and 6.91 years, respectively, for bilateral and unilateral disease. Median age at surgery was 4.57 months in bilateral and 2.99 months in unilateral cases, with 40% and 45%, respectively, of children operated on by 3 months. Median (range) postoperative acuity was 6/18 (6/5, no perception of light) in bilateral and 6/60 (6/5, no perception of light) in unilateral disease. Poor compliance with occlusion was the factor most strongly associated with poorer acuity in both unilateral and bilateral disease: the odds of worse vision in unilateral cataract were 7.92 times greater with <50% versus 100% compliance (95% CI 1.68-37.26). In bilateral disease, odds of worse vision were reduced with each month of decreasing age at surgery (0.98, 95% CI 0.94-0.99), but increased by the presence of additional medical conditions (3.53, 95% CI 1.08-11.44) and the presence of postoperative ocular complications (2.94, 95% CI 1.38-6.51). These findings support a secular improvement in postoperative acuity in bilateral, and to a lesser extent, unilateral disease. Nevertheless early detection of congenital cataract through effective newborn screening and improving concordance with occlusion both remain priorities. Further improvements in outcomes in unilateral disease are necessary before parents can be advised universally that treatment will achieve a functionally useful "spare" eye.

0 comments Cited 30 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Middle East Afr J Ophthalmol

Journal ID (publisher-id): MEAJO

Title: Middle East African Journal of Ophthalmology

Publisher: Medknow Publications (India )

ISSN (Print): 0974-9233

ISSN (Electronic): 0975-1599

Publication date (Print): Jul-Dec 2008

Volume: 15

Issue: 3

Pages: 129-134

Affiliations

From the Department for Control of Non Communicable diseases, Director General of Health Affairs, Ministry of Health, Oman

Author notes

Corresponding Author: Khandekar Rajiv, MS, PG Dip; Eye & Ear Health Care, Department for Control of Non-communicable diseases, Director General of Health Affairs, Ministry of Health (HQ), PO Box 393, Muscat 113, Oman. Fax: 00968-2461832; Email: rajshpp@ 123456omantel.net.om

Article

Publisher ID: MEAJO-15-129

DOI: 10.4103/0974-9233.51988

PMC ID: 3040917

PubMed ID: 21369469

SO-VID: 3ad96863-5830-439b-a386-ce2a51f10308

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Visual Disabilities in Children Including Childhood Blindness

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Chinese Journal of School Health

Most cited references 28

Global data on visual impairment in the year 2002.

Childhood blindness in India: a population based perspective.

Long-term visual acuity and its predictors after surgery for congenital cataract: findings of the British congenital cataract study.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 74

Cited by 4

Most referenced authors 153