Protecting Your Child's Eyes and Sight

[Ms. Kathy]

[shadow=red,left,300]Protecting Your Child's Eyes and Sight[/shadow]

There are many things you can do to keep your child's eyes healthy and seeing clearly from birth through the teen years.

How Can I Help My Child Develop Good Eyesight?

Place toys within focus of your baby"s eyes, only 8-12 inches away.
Encourage your baby to crawl. This helps develop eye-hand coordination.
Talk to baby as you move around the room to encourage his or her eyes to follow you.
Hang a mobile above or outside of your baby's crib.
Give your baby toys to hold and look at.
Make sure your baby is following moving objects with his or her eyes and developing eye-hand coordination. If he or she seems delayed, talk to your child's doctor.
As your baby grows into an active child, continue to encourage good eyesight by providing visually stimulating toys that will improve motor and eye-hand coordination skills. Some good examples are:

Building or linking blocks
Puzzles
Stringing beads
Pegboards
Drawing tools like pencils, chalk, crayons, and markers
Finger paints
Modeling clay

What Can I Do to Protect My Child's Sight?
Eat right both during pregnancy and after. Your baby will be healthier and you will set a good example.
Provide nutritious, well-balance meals for your child that include 400 mcg of vitamin A for children from birth to three years, 500mcg of vitamin A for children from four to six years, and 700-800 mcg of vitamin A for children seven to ten years.
Provide your child with age-appropriate toys that are free from sharp edges.
Give your child toys that encourage visual development.
Provide sun protection for you child when outdoors by means of shelter or UV coated lenses, especially if your child's eyes are light in color.
Encourage your child to wear the proper protective athletic gear when playing sports.
Get your child's eyes examined by an eye doctor regularly.

How Often Should My Child's Eyes be Checked?
There are no strict guidelines. However, a detailed examination by an ophthalmologist, preferably a pediatric ophthalmologist, in the first year of life and another one between the ages of 3 and 4 is recommended. Additional exams are administered if screenings at the pediatrician show any ocular misalignment or visual difficulties. Children with siblings or close relatives with significant eye problems should be examined early and repeatedly by a pediatric ophthalmologist.

What Should I Do in an Emergency?

Here are four first aid tips for eye injuries:

If your child spills something in his or her eye and you don't know what it is, or if there is alkaline in it - most household products will so indicate alkaline on the label - flush your child's eye for at least 20 minutes and have someone call for medical help or the local poison control center. Do not stop flushing your child's eye until medical help arrives unless instructed otherwise.
If your child is hit in the eye with a blunt object, examine the eye closely. If you see bleeding, or cannot open the child's eyelids or observe his or her pupils, you should seek immediate medical attention.
If your child continues to be in pain, constantly rubs his or her injured eye or complains of blurry or double vision, call the doctor. In the meantime, cover your child's injured eye with a cold pack for 15 minutes every hour or so. If you are using an ice pack, wrap it in a moistened cloth so the eye does not become damaged from freezing.
If you child's eye is injured with a sharp object, cover the eye with a shield (the cut out bottom of foam cup would do) as you would above and seek immediate medical attention. DO NOT press on the eyelids. If the sharp object is still in the child's eye DO NOT remove it. Instead cover the eye and call 9-1-1.
For more information, see Your Child's Eye Exam and Eyeglasses for Kids. Reviewed by the doctors at The Cleveland Clinic Cole Eye Institute.
Edited by Charlotte E. Grayson, MD, Oct. 2003.
Portions of this page © The Cleveland Clinic 2000-2004

[Ms. Kathy]

Why Can't They See Eye-to-Eye?
THE business of clarity, it seems, is anything but clear-cut.
By Ng Tze Yong
September 30, 2007
Source Link:The Electric New Paper, Singapore - The Electric New Paper Newsnewpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,143391,00.html

Last month, I conducted an experiment, getting my eyes tested at various optical shops.

My eyes are well and truly messed up. I have high myopia, high astigmatism and lazy eye, the blurry results of a bookworm's childhood.

And lately, things have got just a tad fuzzy again.

Could the guys with the backlit alphabet boards and doctor's air return me to the 6/6 world, I wondered.

After all, the spotlight was recently cast on the standard of eye care here.

In a move MPs said was long overdue, the Optometrists and Opticians Bill was passed in July to ensure better eye care for Singaporeans.

This December, a new initiative by the Singapore Optometric Association (SOA) will be rolled out, adding more stringent standards.

Called the the Standard Clinical Procedure, it will complement the Optometrists and Opticians Bill.


Results of eye tests showing variations in degrees:
The Optometrists and Opticians Bill requires all opticians and optometrists to register and go for upgrading courses.

To oversee them, an Optometrists and Opticians Board will be set up.

So how is eye care like in a country known as the myopia capital of the world? I got my eyes tested by opticians and optometrists at six shops to find out.

None, as the results show, saw eye-to-eye.

No two diagnoses were identical. Results differed about 0.50 dioptres, give or take.

Dioptres is the unit of measurement of optical power, not the often-cited 'degrees'. A diagnosis of 100 'degrees' would correspond to one dioptre.

At its widest point, the diagnoses varied by 75 'degrees'. I don't know if I can live with that. It's when your 'F's start looking like 'P's.

Also, the differences between the optometrists' readings were greater than that between the opticians'.

Surprising, considering optometrists are the ones who have at least a diploma, who are expected to provide a higher standard of care than opticians. Opticians are trained only to fit and sell optical aids and typically learn on the job.

In Singapore, however, their roles are often ill-defined. Opticians carry out eye tests in many shops.

Are the results of the experiments normal? Should we turn a blind eye?

These are legitimate questions in a country where four out of five people are short-sighted.

'All should be knocked on the head,' said the SOA president David Chong when shown the results.

'Especially the optometrists.'

But he offered an explanation: Maybe opticians like to play it safe and not deviate too much from the reading of the old spectacles.

Optometrists, on the other hand, may rely more on their own diagnoses.

Why then are their diagnoses different?

'Optometry is an art, not a science,' Mr Chong said.

He sat me down and conducted an eye test personally, explaining the steps along the way.

'It's essentially a process of checks and counter-checks,' he explained.

What were you doing before the eye test? How tired are your eyes? Little things like these matter.

He said: 'This means you can have one power in the day and one power at night. You can have one power before reading and one power after reading.'

He slid the giant test glasses slightly down my nose, then pushed it up closer to my eyes. 'See the difference?'

The same principle applies if your eyes are being tested with a machine.

That means you shouldn't be fidgeting too much while reciting your ABCs. The position of your eyes vis-a-vis the lens must be constant.

What you say, not just what you can or cannot see, also matters, obviously.

The constant question - 'This one clearer or this one clearer?' - can be tough to answer when both appear crystal clear or equally blur. It might get tedious for the customer to answer after a while.

That's when an optometrist's judgement comes in.

Mr Chong said: 'Optometry is all about communication. Is my customer a restless kid or an illiterate elder? I will conduct the test differently.'

NO GOLD STANDARD

Still, there does not seem to be a 'gold standard' at the end of the day.

Mr Chong's final diagnosis was close to the others but identical to none.

The question for the customer, blur in more ways than one, becomes: Who do you believe?

Does this mean customers should go for a second opinion, just as we do in some medical diagnoses?

'Of course,' was Mr Chong's reply.

But many people don't have that idea. Engineer Chong Yixue, 25, explains: 'I have been going to the same optical shop since secondary school. It's conveniently located and have my records. Why change?'

Location and familiarity rule. Funky frames too.

'Public education in proper eye care is very poor,' said Madam Halimah Yacob, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee on Health.

'Eighty per cent of the time a customer spends in a shop is spent choosing frames. They forget it is not the frame but the thing that goes into the frame that matters.'

Madam Halimah cautioned that The New Paper's little experiment, while interesting, contains a small sample size.

'It's hard to extrapolate across the board,' she said.

But she added: 'Since we are the myopia capital of the world, I thought there would have been more effort in the partnering between the Health Promotion Board and the eye-care industry.

'Eye-care practitioners need to see themselves less as businessmen and more as part of the health-care system.'

But is the new bill too little too late?

Mr Chong said: 'We have not been as strict as the West and that has contributed to the fact that we are now the myopia capital. But we're not sure by how much.'

'Singaporeans are living longer,' adds Madam Halimah. 'Can you imagine what kind of eye-sight we will be having in our old age?'