Do my children have good eye health? Symptoms and warning signs

What Are The Most Common Visual Disorders In Childhood?

Common Visual Disorders In Childhood

Vision disorders in children who present more usually are refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism), amblyopia (lazy eye), strabismus and dyschromatopsia (alterations in color vision).

Alert signals of the lazy eye

The amblyopia or lazy eye affects approximately 2-5% of the population and is one of the most common causes of vision loss in developed countries. We must be vigilant if the child is premature or there is a family history of lazy eyes, refractive errors or retinal disorders. It is important to diagnose it as soon as possible. Although he is generally asymptomatic, his signs include:

•      Headache or cervical pain.

•      hen the child has learned to read, he jumps words or confuses the letters.

Common Visual Disorders In Childhood

Eye misalignment

The strabismus affects between 3% and 6% of the population. It is necessary to diagnose it as soon as possible, since one of the causes that can trigger it is amblyopia, which can be corrected in children undergoing treatment, while it is incorrigible in adulthood. Some of the signs include:

•        Eye misalignment

•        The eyes do not move together towards the same direction.

•        Inclination of the head to one side to look at specific points.

•        The child usually blinks or rubs his eyes.

•        The child turns or closes an eye in order to fix the gaze.

Symptoms of refractive disorders

Refractive errors (astigmatism, myopia and hyperopia) affect about 20% of children.

Symptoms of myopia

The Myopia often occurs around 6 years and usually has some of the following symptoms:

•        The child opens his eyes to fix the look at a long distance.

•        The child confuses people at a more or less distant distance.

•        The child prefers activities requiring near vision.

•        The child approaches the objects to see them correctly or to read.

•        The child is watching TV or the computer very closely.

•        The child opens his eyes to fix the eye on an object.

Headaches, eyestrain and inclination of the head backwards

The farsightedness is often physiological, which means it is present in most children at birth. However, it will disappear as the eye develops. However, in some cases it can persist throughout life. If hyperopia is high and is not corrected, it can trigger amblyopia or strabismus.

It can cause signs such as:

•        Headaches caused for the effort to perform near vision activities

•        Eye fatigue after this kind of activities

•        Reddening eyes

•        Inclination of the head back

•        Aperture of the eyes to fix the gaze

•        Strabismus

Other signs of vision problems may be a poor performance of the child at school and lack of attention and concentration, as well as whitish spots in the pupil area, discomfort in the face of the light, reddening of the eyes, bad positions of the head in order to fix the gaze, difficulty in distinguishing the colors ... If any of these symptoms is present, it is imperative to go to the ophthalmologist to perform a complete eye exam. It is also important to consider the need to have all children undergoing an ophthalmic examination at the age of 3 years to detect visual defects.