UNAIR NEWS – Along with technological advances, the number of children with refractive errors such as nearsightedness or myopia is increasing, so they are required to wear glasses. However, parents often refrain their children from wearing prescription glasses due to their young age. What are the consequences of delaying the use of prescription glasses in children?
Mohamad Nurdin Zuhri, Sp.M., an ophthalmologist from Universitas Airlangga Hospital (RSUA) said that late treatment on visual problems can reduce the function of the optic nerve and cause lazy eye or amblyopia along with the children’s growth and development.
“In childhood, the growth of the optic nerve and retina occurs. Therefore, a good object signal is needed to prevent the function of the eye nerve from decreasing when the child grows up,” said the doctor who is called Nurdin.
Nurdin further explained that glasses are vision aids that aim to help children see objects more clearly. Glasses can make the image produced by the eye fall right on the retina (visual point, ed). Therefore, it is expected that the vision obtained by children with myopia is the same as children with normal eyesight.
“If a child doesn’t wear glasses, he will need extra effort to see an object. Well, that’s not good for the optic nerve because it can cause lazy eye or amblyopia,” said Nurdin, who is also an alumnus of the Ophthalmology Specialist Program at the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Airlangga (FK UNAIR).
Lazy eye or amblyopia is a visual impairment where our vision will never be clear like normal people even though they have used nearsighted glasses. The condition can happen because there are disorders of the eye nerve and also the part of the brain that functions to translate signals from the eye nerve.
“A child experiences lazy eye when he cannot read the Snellen chart all the way down even though he has tried to wear any glasses with any lens powers anymore,” said Nurdin, who also serves at the Mata Utama Clinic (KMU) Gresik.
Furthermore, Nurdin said that parents do not need to worry about their children wearing glasses. If the children find it quite disturbing to wear glasses, they can receive one of the therapies to be free from glasses called LASIK (laser in-situ keratomileusis) surgery.
“There is no need to worry about the children wearing glasses. When he is 18th years old, he can receive LASIK surgery as long as the optic nerve is in good condition,” he said.
At the end, Nurdin explained that overseas LASIK surgery is considered a birthday gift because LASIK surgery is allowed only when the child has reached the age of 18. At that age, the anatomical condition of the eye has been perfectly formed.
“Usually, the minimum age for LASIK is 18 years, so many people can’t wait for that age. Therefore, they consider LASIK surgery as a birthday present,” he concluded.
Author: Adelya Salsabila Putri
Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia
