One of the congenital vision problems that every person faces is astigmatism in a child under one year old. It is quite difficult to identify it with a baby who still does not know how to clearly describe his needs and nuances of sensations in words. But since physiological changes in the visual system occur by the age of 18-20, the key to health is the early diagnosis and treatment of disorders in the eye by non-surgical methods. Astigmatism in a child at 1 year? What to do and what should I pay attention to?
Description of the disease
Astigmatism is the inability of the eye to focus light on the retina. The reason is the changed shape of the eyeball. Depending on what caused the pathology, which part of the eye has undergone the greatest changes, what image the patient receives, several types of the disease are distinguished:
- The cornea is curved. Visual defects are very pronounced, the patient can not get a clear image of neither distant nor close objects.
- Disturbances in the lens are fraught with two types of visual distortions: myopia (myopic astigmatism) and farsightedness (hyperopic astigmatism).
- Depending on the number and type of lesions, a simple type is distinguished (one eye suffers), complex (both eyes suffer from the same problem), mixed (there are disorders in both eyes, but the type of disease is different).
- They are distinguished by their origin: physiological (a minor violation, up to 1 diopter, goes away during adulthood), hereditary (genetic features of vision were present in blood relatives), acquired (occurs as a side effect in some bacterial diseases of the eye, jaw, or due to injuries) .
Disease classification
An urgent treatment is a disease in which there is a drop in vision of more than 1 diopter. At the same time, age is not a contraindication to treatment, since an independent "correction" of vision is fixed only in the range of 0.5-1 diopter. The classification of the severity of the disease in the early stages (until there are satellite diseases) is carried out based on the severity of visual abnormalities:
- weak astigmatism - deviation up to 3 diopters;
- medium - from 3 to 6;
- strong - more than 6 diopters.
At the same time, it is worth noting that a baby can have congenital astigmatism of both a weak and a strong stage. The disease can only progress in less than 20% of cases. The form of disease progression may be the development of hyperopia or myopia.
Symptoms in one-year-olds
The direct responsibility of parents is to monitor the child. This is not about indulging whims, but about ensuring normal physiological and psychological growth. It is important to carefully monitor the behavior to identify possible deviations in health.
The reason for examining an ophthalmologist in the first 3 months of life is the presence of a history of any of the blood relatives with vision problems, difficult birth (including cesarean section), and mother’s illness while bearing a child.
After the sixth month of life, you can be alerted:
- the inability to concentrate vision on the subject;
- nausea and vomiting when trying to move independently;
- vagueness of grasping reflexes (a child often misses than gets his hand out);
- when walking, constantly looks under his feet, loses coordination;
- movements constrained, timid, general physical activity reduced;
- tilts his head from side to side when examining something;
- squints;
- often cries, complains of headaches;
- there is a lag in development (inability to repeat a movement for someone, to recognize an object), low independent cognitive activity.
The child is not directly interviewed, since the data obtained can be greatly distorted: the baby will confirm or deny everything in order to attract attention or not provoke manifestations of discontent on the part of the parents. In addition, the baby always sees the world in his own way, he simply does not know that there can be disturbances in his vision.
A list of these symptoms may indicate other diseases, but going to the ophthalmologist if you find at least 2-3 symptoms is mandatory.
Causes of the disease
Often astigmatism in a child up to a year is a feature of its intrauterine development, although science knows the hereditary component of the disease.
In addition to the genetic predisposition and physiological characteristics, it is worth highlighting at risk children who have:
- there was an injury to the cornea, eyelids, jaw;
- Severe infectious disease was inflicted in early childhood;
- there are other visual impairments, and astigmatism is just another consequence of a more serious illness.
It is difficult to foresee all risk factors. It is advisable that even a child without eye symptoms should be examined by an ophthalmologist at the age of one.
Diagnosis of the disease
Diagnosis of this disease is possible only in the ophthalmologist’s office, and not at home or at a pediatrician’s appointment.
A one-year-old child is diagnosed with astigmatism based on behavior, the results of retinoscopy. The total time spent on diagnostic procedures is no more than 30-40 minutes. Increasingly, methods of complex computer diagnostics are being used, which make it possible to determine not only the type of pathology, but also the specific physiological changes that led to it, a possible type of corrective methods.
Disease treatment
Astigmatism is one of the diseases that can be eradicated without surgery. The optimal means for correcting vision will be glasses selected after careful research. With astigmatism in children 2 years of age, there may be an increased interest in games with glasses, and not just wearing them. Moreover, the lenses have a rather large volume and a specific curvature. It is advisable that the parents patiently accustom the baby to the adult form of treatment - glasses.
With astigmatism in a child of 2.5 years, nutrition and the use of vitamins, eye drops, which reduce the feeling of tension in the eyes, can become additional means of correction.
Gymnastics for the eyes
Daily eye gymnastics is another component of health. The task of examining distant and close objects with both eyes, in turn with one eye, will become a method of accustoming the brain to a normal image, as well as a game. This will help with astigmatism in a child of one and a half years or more. But if the child is older, additional measures are needed.
Features of wearing lenses
From 8-14 years old, special lenses can be used to adjust the shape of the eye. Dress them up for the night. The age of use is due to several reasons:
- Up to 6-7 years, defects associated with the size or shape of the eye are usually eliminated on their own.
- A child under the age of 7 years can rarely resist physical impact on the lenses (rubbing, displacement), which can lead to mechanical injury to the cornea.
- At the primary school and adolescence, changes in the size and shape of the eye still occur, so this type of correction will help to avoid surgery after 18 years.
Treatment of concomitant diseases
Treatment also includes the elimination of concomitant eye diseases, training of nerve centers in the brain. The fact is that in the absence of treatment for astigmatism in a child 3 years old and later, the main brain ceases to process the information received from the eyes. That eyeball, which gives a lower-quality image, is blocked by the optic nerves, can completely lose the ability to receive and conduct visual information.
Such a violation can be prevented by covering a healthier eye for several hours a day. In this case, the brain will have to compensate for the lack of information through more active use of the diseased eye. The goal of such therapy is to prevent a radical deterioration in vision, to maintain a sick eye at a stable level of quality of work.
Possible consequences of the disease
Untreated astigmatism can lead to lazy eye syndrome, or strabismus. In 20 cases out of 100, we will be talking about constant visual impairment in one or both eyes, up to complete loss of vision.
"Lazy eye" - the loss of the brain's ability to combine visual data from the eyes to get a clear picture. Most often, attempts to cover up, screw up one eye, noticeable headaches, dizziness, and nausea are added to the existing symptoms.
Treatment consists of two parts: the cessation of further processes of falling vision clarity, restorative therapy.
Strabismus is not just a cosmetic defect. Behind it is the lack of volumetric vision, systemic visual impairment in both eyes, almost always a sharp decrease in image quality on the squinting eye. Treatment includes various methods, depending on the type of disease:
- wearing glasses, lenses;
- laser correction;
- surgical intervention;
- continuous physiotherapy procedures for the development and consolidation of binocular vision functions.
Farsightedness and myopia
Hypermetropic astigmatism in a 1 year old child means poor eyesight at any distance. From a medical point of view, it is important to establish only the type of refraction and focusing of the light beams in order to prescribe the correct treatment and wearing lenses of the appropriate range of action.
Myopia always means poor clarity when distinguishing objects at a considerable distance, but, as for farsightedness, it is important to determine the degree of the disease. The lack of treatment for the last two pathologies is fraught with the development of strabismus, stable visual impairment.
Early diagnosis of astigmatism in a child up to a year helps prevent severe complications in the functioning of the visual sensory system.
Disease Prevention
Birth medicine is not yet able to correct birth defects. To reduce the risk will help planning a child from a genetic point of view. For example, the risk of having a sick child is higher for the couple where there are the same type of vision problems for several generations. If astigmatism can be traced only on the maternal or paternal side, then the risk of the disease in the baby is low.
During pregnancy, it is worth avoiding exposure to chemicals as much as possible, eating balanced.
Since astigmatism in a child up to a year old can also occur under the influence of external factors, they monitor:
- The quality of the lighting in the room where the child spends the most time. The more natural sunlight, the better. It is unacceptable to use fluorescent lights in a child’s or workplace of a student.
- Lack of disturbance of posture. Constant postures when playing, studying violate not only the bone component, but also the possibility of good vision.
- The presence of different types of eye strain. Constant contact with the phone, computer monitor (cartoons, games) must alternate (if it is not possible to completely exclude gadgets) with walks in the fresh air, focusing on objects of different degrees of range.
- Physical education for the eyes.
- Timely treatment of infectious diseases.
- History of neurological symptoms.
- Timely correction of existing eye problems.
- Integrated vitamin nutrition for the child.
- The absence of factors that directly damage the eyes.
Remember, astigmatism is a very serious illness in children. Tests and difficulties in everyday life await the baby if the parents do not diagnose the disease on time and show the child to the doctor. For prophylaxis, it is important from childhood to visit doctors according to the plan for a physical examination. In no case should you ignore such visits to the clinic.
No preventative measures can guarantee a 100% absence of astigmatism in the child’s history, but with timely treatment, this disease becomes a temporary defect, and not a problem for life.