Vision Problems in Preschoolers Need Treatment

By Genevra Pittman

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) May 27 - One in 16 preschoolers has visual impairment in at least one eye, suggests a new study of Australian kids.

The findings highlight the importance of diagnosing and correcting vision problems in young kids so that their eyes are in good shape to start school, the authors said in an April 29th online paper in Ophthalmology.

"Especially if there is a significant amount of visual impairment, they will get worse," said Dr. Rohit Varma, one of the study's authors from the University of Southern California.

When kids are young, minor vision problems are "a pretty easy fix," with eyeglasses, he said. However, in many cases, "if it's not corrected, it may not be correctable later on," Dr. Varma told Reuters Health.

Researchers from the University of Sydney led the study, giving eye exams to more than 1,000 kids between the ages of two and a half years and six years.

In total, between 6% and 7% of those kids had visual impairment in at least one eye, and almost 3% had problems in both eyes.

Refractive errors - mainly astigmatism and farsightedness - accounted for 70% of vision impairment in kids' worse eye. Amblyopia accounted for 26% of worse-eye impairments.

Boys and girls were equally likely to have vision problems, as were kids of different ethnicities. However, kids with a low birth weight had an increased risk of vision problems, compared to those born at a normal weight.

The overall rate of vision problems seen in this study is similar to what has been shown in studies of young kids in the U.S., the authors note.

Dr. Varma, who led one of those U.S. studies, said that together such results show that for kids with vision problems, getting eye glasses quickly is essential for the long run -- as some of those problems may get much worse with time if left untreated.

Kids develop eye problems for a number of reasons, some possibly preventable and others not.

"I think that some of it is certainly hereditary or genetic," said Dr. Michael Repka, of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

"There is at least some suggestion that there are environmental influences, both in terms of diet and other exposures," Dr. Repka, who was not involved in the current study, told Reuters Health.

He added that the only way to detect eye problems in many kids is to screen for them.

The United States Preventive Services Task force recommends screening kids for vision problems, specifically amblyopia, at least once between age three and five.

However, at least in the U.S., "there aren't very many good methods of screening and identifying kids early," Dr. Varma said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/jMIxj0

Ophthalmology 2011.