Astigmatism is understood as an optical defect of the visual apparatus when several optical tricks or none are projected in the eyeball. As a result, the image is deformed, becomes blurry (fuzzy). In most cases, astigmatism in children is a congenital disease. If one of the parents has a similar problem, then the probability of its occurrence in the child also increases.
This disease can be present with myopia and farsightedness, sometimes found in mixed form. If you mentally divide the sick eye into several planes, it turns out that the refraction in the planes will be different. In a healthy eyeball, this should not be, i.e. refraction should be the same.
Astigmatism in children can occur as a result of surgery or in connection with an eye injury. According to statistics, this disease is considered the most common type of refractive error of the ocular apparatus. Depending on the severity, appropriate treatment is prescribed.
In newborns and children up to a year, a small astigmatism can occur, which passes by the age of 8. But it happens that children's astigmatism is recognized too late and amblyopia or strabismus develops. Young children are unaware of the low level of their vision, thinking that everyone around them sees the world in a similar way.
Therefore, parents should promptly take their baby to an appointment with an optometrist in order to identify eye astigmatism in time and begin treatment. In adolescence, schoolchildren come to a specialist with complaints of headaches, fatigue, pain in the eye area when reading.
How do children with astigmatism see it?
If with myopia a person sees well at close range, then with farsightedness it is far. Unlike these eye diseases, with astigmatism, vision is equally weak in the distance, in the vicinity (objects are distorted, stretched out and blurred).
Sometimes the disease is combined with farsightedness or nearsightedness, respectively, low quality of vision is further exacerbated. It should be noted that any diseases of the visual apparatus adversely affect the development of the child, because the correct perception of images is far from the last significance in this process.
Astigmatism in children - treatment methods
If astigmatism is detected in a child, it is necessary to immediately begin treatment in order to prevent the disease from moving into a more difficult phase of development. Treatment is carried out using special glasses with spherical lenses. With a sufficiently pronounced degree of the disease, contact lenses are put on the cornea of the eye .
To correct the disease, children choose individual cylindrical glasses, which must be worn regularly. It is difficult to make a small child walk with glasses, so parents must play the desired result in a playful way. And adolescents are often embarrassed and shy of their new look. In this case, you need to conduct conversations with the child and select not only the necessary words, but also the frame of the form that the child likes.
In addition to glasses, physiotherapeutic procedures will benefit, they are usually prescribed by an ophthalmologist. Similar procedures must be taken regularly and in courses. Only strict observance of all the doctor’s recommendations: visiting on time, wearing specialized glasses is the key to successful vision correction.
Astigmatism in children, especially at an early age, is easily treatable. A kid suffering from this disease can attend a specialized kindergarten. It is in such pre-school institutions that educators ensure that the child regularly puts on glasses.
Typically, in such gardens, various procedures are carried out to help strengthen vision. But to completely eliminate astigmatism in children is possible only by the surgical method. The whole thing is in particular the optical system of the eyeball, and this can not be changed neither with glasses nor with procedures.