Many kids still aren’t getting eyes checked

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

According to the Alberta Association of Optometrists, parents should take their children for eye exams at six months of age, once between ages two and five, and every year thereafter.
Children are covered for the financial cost of full eye exams by the government up to their 19th birthday. However, according to Strathmore optometrist Michelle Duke at FYI Doctors, a lot of children still aren’t getting their eyes checked.
“It’s a little better, but still not great,” she said. “It kind of baffles me why people don’t take it more seriously. I really think it’s important they do.”
Duke is trying to help get the word out to parents to come in and get their children’s eyes checked. She said the association has a really great program called I See I Learn, designed to give handouts to kindergarten students as reminders for getting eyes checked. If the children end up needing glasses, they can get their first pair for free.
“So there’s absolutely no excuse whatsoever to not get their kids’ eyes checked,” said Duke.
The association states that one in four school-age children have a vision problem and 80 per cent of a child’s learning is obtained through vision.
“We want to make sure, especially going into school, that they can see, that they are able to read and learn to the best of their ability and, on the flip side, make sure their eyes are healthy,” she said.
Duke said even though eye exam numbers are not as high as she would like to see them, this is a busy time of year for checkups.
“I think it is becoming more well-known that it’s something you should do as part of your regular routine,” she said. “Go back to school, go get those eyes checked.”
Duke said she loves working with children and finds her job fun and rewarding. She noted that a lot of times, especially for first eye exams, children are initially apprehensive and scared, “and then are having a blast by the end.”
A lot become excited for their next eye exam.
Optometrists check everything at a comprehensive eye exam, including vision, prescription, binocular vision and a host of other things. Duke said screening tests aren’t very good and do not offer the same type of thorough services. And sometimes a visual issue may go undiagnosed and reported instead as ADD, ADHD, dyslexia or a learning disability.
The two big eye issues that can occur in young children are retinal blastoma and diabetes. Retinal blastoma is a type of eye cancer which most of the time is caught before children turn three years of age.
Eye disease and blindness can be avoided with regular eye checkups because the sooner these illnesses are caught, the better. Duke said every child’s eye exam is a little bit different, and that she changes it to their abilities and to how it’s going. She can direct the exams to still figure out the same things but just in different ways.