PARENTS, no matter how keen on monitoring their child's health, often take eyesight care at the back seat. This should not be the case, as according to Dr. Lareen Dawn Tan, taking care of child's health must be holistic, meaning it includes all aspect of a child's body.
This is why the Davao City Pediatric Optometrists, a recently formed group of concerned optometrists on children's eyesight in the city led by Dr. Eldeen Baluso, turned over Monday, March 2, 2020, several corrective eye glasses to the students of Kapitan Tomas Monteverde Sr. Central Elementary School, the group's adopted school.
Before the group determined the students to be given glasses, the school referred to them 173 students for eye exam. However, only 70 were examined because of various reasons. And of the 70, it was found out that 28 of them have external eye problems.
External eye problems vary from as simple as those that only cause redness of the eyes to those may cause eye infection that need immediate medical attention.
The group also found out that two of those they were checked have color vision problems while 36 were diagnosed to have refractive errors that need corrective eye glasses.
Of the 36 students, 22 of them were diagnosed to have myopia or nearsightedness, six with astigmatism, and four with hyperopia or farsightedness.
Dr. Tan of Global Eyecare Center and member of the group said during the event refractive errors of the children may cause poor reading ability which also result to their poor grades.
"Akala ng teacher or ng parents bobo yung bata kasi di marunong or nahihirapang magbasa, di nila alam nahihirapan talaga kasi may refractive error siya," she said.
She also said refractive errors may also cause for a child to be judged and bullied as someone who is "bobo."
Moreover, during the event, the eye doctors also found out that there are three students who have abnormal binocular vision and abnormal depth perception; two students have esophoria and seven students with exophoria.
In their Accommodation and Convergence Test Results Summary, they have diagnosed 35 students with abnormal accommodation, which means the ability of the child's eyes to look at smaller prints like in textbooks, and 40 abnormal convergence or the ability of the child's eyes to converge when looking at a near target.
With these results, the pediatric optometrists urged the parents to not only check for refractive errors of the kids like myopia, astigmatism or hyperopia.
"Children's eye health must also be examined," Dr. Tan said.
The group also added that determining whether the child has color vision problem will help teachers, parents, and guardians to know of the limitations of the child on specific activities where color identification is required to avoid frustrations both on the teacher's and on the child's part.
"These functional visual skills cannot be examined with regular eye exams but are very detrimental to a child's school performance," the group concluded.
Thus, they are encouraging not only the parents but the school community to continue together with eye doctors in helping achieve a healthier eyesight for the learners.
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(Photos by Cristina E. Alivio and Davao City Pediatric Optometrists)