| Sub-title | |
| Authors | S Attard M Francalanza |
| Abstract | Aims: The purpose of the study was to perform a retrospective descriptive study of children with visual impairment and to look at the epidemiological characteristics and the services available for rehabilitation. Method: The Orthoptic files of 800 children registered at the Orthoptic department between January 1997 and December 2005 were examined and children who satisfied the criteria for low vision, blindness or any other significant visual defect were selected for data analysis. Results: A total of 66 children, 38 males and 28 females, were found to have some form of visual disability. 20 were cortically blind, 19 had severe visual impairment, 5 had moderate visual impairment and 18 had low vision. The visual acuity of 4 children could not be measured accurately for classification. While 20 children had no significant refractive error, 17 children had variable degrees of myopia and 9 had a degree of hypermetropia. 14 children were found to have another ocular pathology and 40 children had two or more medical pathologies. Treatments ranged from spectacle correction and occlusion therapy to surgical intervention. One case had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Two important observations made were (a) very few patients had perimetry and visual evoked potentials studies performed, and that (b) Only very few children with low vision were using low vision aids. Conclusions: We recommend that services for visual evoked potentials should be made more available, thus providing more information regarding the visual function. There should also be more services for low-vision aids that seem to be so lacking in use in our cohort of visually impaired children. |
Published in: | |
| Journal | Malta Medical Journal |
| Volume | 18 Supplement |
| Page | |
| Date | 01/12/2006 |
| Link to journal | |
| Key words | orthoptics, paediatrics, visual evoked potential, visual impairment |