Visual impairment in children is the most pressing problem of modern ophthalmology. According to the World Health Organization, about 300 million people worldwide suffer from visual impairment, of which 45 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. Children make up 43% of the total number of visually impaired people.
In Ukraine, more than 10,000 children have disabilities due to diseases of the visual organ and about 12,000 people with disabilities are recognized each year due to visual impairments. Every year, the number of children with poor eyesight increases by 250,000, and over the past decade, the rate of children's visual impairment has increased 2.5 times.
This reduces the child's ability to learn in the future, not the ability to obtain a potentially possible level of education, specialty.
The Department of Ophthalmology of the Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine and the Department of Ophthalmopedagogy of the MP Drahomanov National Pedagogical University developed a project under the leadership of Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, Professor Sergiy Rykov and Professor Yevgenia Synyova, Professor Iryna Shargorodska, Professor Sergiy Mogilevskyy, Associate Professor Yurii Barinov, in order to help children with visual impairments.
Within the framework of this project the monograph "Inclusive education of children with visual impairments" was published for teaching disciplines by researchers, teachers of general secondary education with inclusive and special education of children with visual impairments, specialists of inclusive resource centres, which solves a significant scientific problem ophthalmology.
A number of lecture lectures on visual impairments in children have been prepared, which can be viewed at the following links:
- Features of refraction anomaly management in children. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KfP8DUZQYQ
- Strabismus in children. How to detect strabismus in children in time, symptoms. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ug6j0xEGDQ
- Eye diseases in children. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kaACJewsC8
- About modern eye diseases in children. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCZU7vCQ7QY
Each of us must remember - in order to prevent the development of congenital visual defects, pregnant women should be observed by ophthalmologists at 12 and 20 weeks, and children should be consulted according to the protocol at 3-4 months, 1 year, 3 years, 6 years, and then recommended annual examination by a pediatric ophthalmologist. If the newborn child has health problems or the child was born prematurely, then the examination of the pediatric ophthalmologist is carried out from the first days of life.