Friday, July 22, 2022, the PKRS unit held counseling on Refractive Defects in Children in the Polyclinic waiting room with resource person Dr. Cipta Sanjaya.
Visual disturbances do not only occur in adults, even young children can experience vision problems, such as cylindrical eyes or minus eyes. To overcome this visual impairment in children, ophthalmologists usually advise the Little One to use glasses. However, if the child's visual impairment is still in a fairly mild category, sometimes the doctor does not provide any treatment.
Usually, eye disorders in children occur due to an unhealthy lifestyle, such as staring at the screen too much or using gadgets too often. When children reach the age of 3-6 years old, their visual abilities and vision are much more developed than in previous ages. This is the age when they begin to integrate body movements and vision.
There are many activities that require their keen eyesight, from learning to write to gross motor activities. When it comes to astigmatism in children, it is quite common. Cylindrical eye or minus eye in children occurs due to changes in the curvature of the cornea of the eye. Consequently, the child's vision will be blurred because the light entering the eye does not focus on the retina, resulting in blurry vision. The cause of astigmatism in children is not always due to lifestyle. It could be that the child does have a different shape of the eye lens from birth. This means that there is a genetic factor at play here.
Other factors that can cause minus eyes in children are eye surgery and injury to the eye. Children may be born with astigmatism, but this is usually not recognized until they undergo an eye test. Parents need to remember that this eye health test is very important so that the minus eye or cylinder condition in children is detected immediately.
Some of the signs of a child with astigmatism include:
- Frequent eye rubbing even when not sleepy
- Eyes look watery
- Tilting the head when looking at something
- Closing one eye to see with more focus
- Avoiding activities that require focused vision
- Complaining of tired eyes to headache
If your child shows any of these signs, have your child's eyes checked by an ophthalmologist immediately so that the condition of your child's eyes does not worsen.