The importance of eye exams

Quick and painless routine eye exams ensure good, healthy vision. Before your exam, your eye care professional will ask you about your personal health and family history, whether you've experienced any eye trouble, and about your work and lifestyle. A typical eye exam will consist of several tests that may include: checking for eye movement, peripheral vision, and color blindness; administering a glaucoma test; determining the health of your optic nerve and retina. Ideally, you should have your eyes examined every year. Routine eye exams can detect early signs of vision conditions, allowing for fast treatment of most problems. Eye exams can also reveal serious and, often times, hidden medical conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, inflammations, and infections.

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Children need regular eye exams

One in four children between the ages of 5 and 12 suffer from an undiagnosed vision problem that affects their educational performance. Since children often have no way of knowing if their vision is poor, it is much harder to detect the problem. It is recommended that all children have their eyes examined at age four. If there is a family history of eye conditions, it is recommend that their eyes be examined by the age of three. Early detection is the key to good vision - vision problems often respond favorably when corrected during the growth and development of a child's visual system.

Signs that your child may have a vision problem

Since many children won’t realize they aren’t seeing as well as they could be, here are several warning signs for parents to look out for:

• Squinting, rubbing, or blinking the eyes a lot
• Having trouble seeing the blackboard at school
• Using a finger as a place mark when reading
• Holding head at an awkward angle when reading
• Closing or covering one eye to focus
• Holding reading materials close to face
• Having red or crusty eyes