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REFRACTIVE ERROR

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• Refractive error is the most common cause of blurred vision in children of school going age

• It probably has the simplest of all eye treatments - -wearing spectacles

• Quite a lot of children have refractive errors but because of never having an eye checkup, they never know about it. 

• It is mandatory to have an eye checkup of a preschool child to rule out presence of any refractive error

• The refractive errors are :

• Myopia – needing Concave (minus power) lenses or 

• Hypermetropia – needing Convex ( plus power lenses)

• A peculiar problem seen in some children is presence of different glass powers in the 2 eyes. This results in one of the eyes becoming amblyopic (lazy eye). If amblyopia is diagnosed and treated timely with glasses and probably patching, then permanent irreversible vision loss can be prevented

• Adults especially middle aged – above the age of 40 years – have difficulty in reading book or seeing numbers on the mobile phone. This is due to reduction in power of ciliary muscles of the eyes resulting in reduced capacity of accommodation.Thesolution to this problem is wearing glasses while doing near work