Refractive Errors
I have seen a lot of pediatric patients with refractive errors and were referred to the pediatric opthalmologists for further assessment and management.
In children, there are three kinds of refractive errors and these are:
1. Hyperopia also known as farsightedness
2. Myopia or near- sightedness
3. Astigmatism
At birth, most babies are born as hyperopes, 5% are myopes and 20% are having no error of refraction.
Hyperopic eyes are shorter than normal antero posteriorly. So what happened here is that the image is focused behind the retina so the child will have difficulty seeing at far and at near distances. But as the child grows older, this hyperopia tends to decrease.
On the other hand, myopic eyes are longer than normal so that the focused image falls in front of the retina.
So what happens here is that the myopic child usually puts reading materials near his face and he cannot see distant objects. Myopia tends to increase as the child grows older.
Astigmatism means the corneal curvatures in the various meridians are not the same. Here, children exhibit head or face tilting in addition to making the palpebral fissure small when focusing at objects. It is also noted during eye examination using the Snellen’s chart that the child misses some letters.
So it is generally advisable that children who have bilateral ocular pain and having bitemporal or frontal headache, frequent congestion of the eyes, appearance of styes, sleepiness when reading and in extreme cases with strabismus to be screened by the Opthalmologists for proper management.