Getting An Eye Checkup
A lot of times I talk about taking good care of our eyes and our sight by getting regular checkups, ensuring that we keep to our eyecare appointment and all that but then today I had a talk with one of my old patients and he wanted some insight into the timeline for eyecare for the sake of his wards.
His concern was that he had just had a baby with his wife and he now takes eyecare very seriously due to his time with me over the past few years and so he was like, "So Doc, at what point in time can I bring my baby for our first appointment, and then afterward what time again would it be prudent to come? What actually is supposed to be her timeline of eyecare?"
So I talked and explained as much I could to him and it reminded me of the fact that I had to share this with the science community and my dear readers and audience of healthcare. And so I am here today for that, and do hope that this guides the lot of us out there especially parents who have wards and young ones who have still yet to have their first check.
Eyecare Timeline
So in answering his question, I first asked how old is the baby and he mentioned that she is about 3 months old now but then recently she has been getting lots of discharge every morning and that was one of the concerns that drove him to find me. And so I explained that the child may have some form of bacterial infection and should be treated immediately
Aside from that though, it is important that within the first 3 months of a baby's life, he or she ought to be taken to the Optometrist for a quick evaluation, it is at this point that infantile glaucoma could be diagnosed to save sight, a lot often during this period the child may also get bacteria infections and if the mother had any infections before childbirth then there is a high chance the baby could get it on the eye hence the need.
From about 6 months to a year another appointment should be made so the baby's developing vision could be assessed, is he or she following the light as it ought to be at that point? Are there any signs of tropia? These are the best times to notice these and get them sorted out if need be. Then afterwards we do the regular appointment which the guardians ought to also do for themselves.
So every year when you go for your routine examination, go with your infant, as they grow older some amount of refractive error in terms of hyperopia is to be expected however if it is the other way round, then it ought to be dealt with as soon as possible so the child doesn't suffer from amblyopia and this can only be revealed through these routine care.
It is also important that as a preschooler your vision is thoroughly assessed to ensure that there are no refractive errors or hidden binocular vision anomalies as these could have detrimental effects on the child's education or studies.
Conclusion
And so whiles these may seem like much, it actually ain't much and the benefits for the sight and the time should be ok for one to make it for the timeline. And so please let's continue to make an effort towards our eyesight, let's take our eyecare seriously and that of our wards so that they may learn from you and continue with their future kids.
Once again, it was a pleasure serving you, I do hope you enjoyed the read, thanks so much for your time and attention and I wish you the very best. Cheers!
Further Reading
Alley C. L. (2013). Preschool vision screening: update on guidelines and techniques. Current opinion in ophthalmology, 24(5), 415–420. https://doi.org/10.1097/ICU.0b013e3283641c56.
Hamm, L. M., Yashadhana, A., Burn, H., Black, J., Grey, C., Harwood, M., Peiris-John, R., Burton, M. J., Evans, J. R., & Ramke, J. (2021). Interventions to promote access to eyecare for non-dominant ethnic groups in high-income countries: a scoping review. BMJ global health, 6(9), e006188. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006188.
Snowdon, S. K., & Stewart-Brown, S. L. (1997). Preschool vision screening. Health technology assessment (Winchester, England), 1(8), i–83..
Congratulations!
Your post has been manually curated and reblogged.
You can follow our curation trail on Hive.Vote
If you want to support us and the authors we vote for you can upvote this comment or delegate some Hive Power to our account. Thanks!
Propose a worthy post by mentioning us in the post or in a comment.
We reblog curated posts, follow us if you wish to see them in your feed.
Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!
Please consider delegating to the @stemsocial account (85% of the curation rewards are returned).
You may also include @stemsocial as a beneficiary of the rewards of this post to get a stronger support.
Thanks for the education, doctor. Sometimes it's easy to attribute certain cases to unknown causes. That's why, as health professionals, we always recommend that people seek medical advice. It was good that your old patient sought advice from you regarding the eye discharge.
It is a pleasure ma'am, thanks for passing through