Reduced visual acuity in children from 5 to 6 years old, with LEA chart
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Reduced visual acuity in children from 5 to 6 years old, with LEA chart Amélia Fernandes Nunes 1,2
&
F. Sena 1 & R. Calado 3 & A. R. R. Tuna 1,2 & A. P. R. Gonçalves 3 & P. L. Monteiro 1,2
Received: 29 June 2020 / Revised: 31 August 2020 / Accepted: 10 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose To assess visual acuity in 5-year-old children with LEA chart and to estimate the frequency of reduced visual acuity in this age. Method Study aimed at children attending the last year of preschool education in Public Kindergartens and Private Social Solidarity Institutions (IPSS) under the influence Regional Health Administration of the Médio Tejo, in Portugal. The 15-line LEA charts at 3 m were used and the presentation visual acuity was measured monocularly starting with the right eye. The ETDRS-fast methodology was used. Results A total of 3072 children participated, being 51% male and 54% from rural area. A rate of 13.7% children with a reduced level of visual acuity was found, that is, visual acuity worse or equal to 0.2 logMAR in at least one eye, or an interocular difference greater than two lines. Conclusion This research shows that reduced VA frequency rate in children between 5 and 6 years old is high. The literature presents amblyopia (refractive and/or strabismic) and uncorrected refractive errors without amblyopia as the main cause of reduced VA in childhood, and these anomalies negatively affect child development, especially at the educational level. Reduced VA interferes with performance on a number of key tasks in the learning process. Thus, it is important to preserve the running program to identify these deficits and lead to their correction before the beginning of the school stage. Keywords Visual acuity . Children . LEA charts . Refractive errors . Visual screening
Introduction Visual acuity (VA) in children is a clinically relevant measure in screening actions, especially for suspected cases of amblyopia and detection of significant uncorrected refractive errors without amblyopia [1–5]. Amblyopia (refractive and/or strabismic) and uncorrected refractive errors without amblyopia are the leading cause of vision loss in children [6, 7]. These Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-020-04927-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Amélia Fernandes Nunes [email protected] 1
Department of Physics, Universidade da Beira Interior, 6200 Covilhã, Portugal
2
CICS – Health Sciences Research Centre; ubimedical, Covilhã, Portugal
3
Public Health Unit – Médio Tejo, Regional Health Administration of Lisbon and Tagus Valley, Lisbon, Portugal
defects are associated with poor performance in a range of school tasks, such as letter or word recognition and tasks that require speed and accuracy. Therefore, screening actions before school entry are important in order to identify suspicious situations of ocular alterations likely to be resolved [8, 9]. Several
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