What is Paediatric Ophthalmology?

Paediatric ophthalmology is a subspecialty of ophthalmology that deals with treating various eye problems affecting children.

Some of the most common eye diseases in children:

• Refractive-errors
• Squint
• Lazy eye (Amblyopia)
• Epiphora
• Drooping of upper eyelids
• Eye diseases in newborns include:
  • Congenital glaucoma
  • Cataract
  • Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP)

Symptoms:

It is very difficult to ascertain for parents if the child below 5 years has any eye related disease. However, some of the indicators are

• a child might not be quick in learning and would show slow responses to visual stimuli especially in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• one of the eyes does not look straight ahead but looks sidewise
• Squeezing of eyes
• watering of eye
• while reflex in pupillary area
• size of the eyeball becomes large

Diagnosis:

• In case of infants – Qualitative assessment of an infant’s vision is based on his or her ability to show steady fixation of a target and to follow the target using smooth pursuit movements. However, the ability to fix and follow does not necessarily indicate full vision
• In case of pre-school age –visual screening with ETDRS Chart / HOTV Chart / Lea Symbol Chart /  Sheridan Gardiner Chart is done
• In case of school going age – visual screening with Snellen Chart is done
• If the vision is less than normal then various steps are taken with the help of various diagnostic tools to find out the cause of the problem

Prevention:

Since children mostly cannot express the exact problem to their parents because of their inability to understand whether they have any visual disability, hence parents should notice any abnormality in their kids’ behavior for e.g.

• while watching TV from a close distance or excessively straining to read, or
• watering of eyes or
• frequent blinking of eyes
• performing badly at school

Comprehensive eye checks should be an essential part of your child’s healthcare regime.

Treatment:

• In case of near sightedness in children other than which is inherited, it is possible to reduce the power with a definitive treatment process other than surgical intervention
• In case of congenital cataract surgical intervention is needed at the earliest
• Refractive correction may also correct squint
• In case of Amblyopia (Lazy eye) vision is improved by occluding the better eye

When to call your doctor:

Regular eye check-up once every 6 months is must for the child.