Complete eye test vital for children before admission in the school

Rawalpindi: A thorough physical examination of eyes of every child is strongly recommended before enrolment in a school even if there are no unusual signs, a leading hospital announced Wednesday.

Complete eye check-up is critical for children before admission in school as good vision is fundamental to their physical and mental development and success during education, it said.

Equal input from both eyes is necessary for the brain’s vision centres to work normally; if a child’s eyes cannot send clear images to the brain, his or her vision may become limited in ways that cannot be corrected later, said Dr Tariq Usman.

Briefing media persons, he said that the many eye problems, if detected earlier in life, can be treated effectively guaranteeing a good future.

He said that the most common vision problems in school-age children have been identified as difficulty to see the blackboard, focus on things, reading books or concentrate.

Tariq Usman said that some children have developed amblyopia in which one eye is not able to see as well as the other. In such cases, the brain sees two different pictures that it can’t combine in a meaningful way, so it ignores the image from the weaker eye and chooses to interpret only the image sent by the stronger eye which results in underdevelopment of the weaker eye.

We see children with eyes turned in or turned out, one eye in and another out, and one eye higher than the other one which will hold back development of the visual pathway if not addressed at an early stage, he added.

He said that a child may not complain about poor vision as they usually don’t realize that they’re not seeing well or that their eyes are not working in conjunction with each other.

He informed that Al-Shifa Trust has treated many including 1600 school children at its free eye camps in the suburbs of Rawalpindi and AJK during the last three months.

Normal treatment, citric and some surgical operations were conducted on the spot while critical cases were shifted to Al-Shifa hospitals.

Besides these camps, some 200450 outdoor patients were treated in the all four hospitals of Al-Shifa Trust in last quarter making it one of largest outreach eye care program in the country, said Tariq Usman.