Background: Blind children and young adults have to overcome a lifetime of emotional, social and economic difficulties. They employ non-vision dependent methods for education.

Objective: To assess the causes of blindness in a special school in southwestern Nigeria to aid the development of efficient blindness prevention programmes.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of the Ekiti State Special Education School, Nigeria was conducted in May-June 2008 after approval from the Ministry of Education. All students in the blind section were examined for visual acuity, pen-torch eye examination and dilated fundoscopy in addition to taking biodata and history.

Results: Thirty blind students with mean age of 18±7.3 years and male: female ratio of 1.7:1 were examined. Blindness resulted commonly from cataract eight (26.7%), glaucoma six (20%) retinitis pigmentosa four (16.7%) and posttraumatic phthysis bulbi two (6.7%). Blindness was avoidable in 18 (61%) of cases. Glaucoma blindness was associated with redness, pain, lacrimation and photophobia in 15 (50%) and hyphaema in 16.7% of students; none of these students were on any medication at the time of study.

Conclusion: The causes of blindness in rehabilitation school for the blind are largely avoidable and glaucoma-blind pupils face additional painful eye related morbidity during rehabilitation. While preventive measures and early intervention are needful against childhood cataract and glaucoma, regular ophthalmic consultations and medications are needed especially for glaucoma blind pupils.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/wajm.v30i1.69917DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

blindness special
8
special education
8
education school
8
blindness
7
blind
5
school
4
school background
4
background blind
4
blind children
4
children young
4

Similar Publications

Emodepside: the anthelmintic's mode of action and toxicity.

Front Parasitol

December 2024

Department of Biomedical Science, College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States.

Nematode parasitic infections continue to be a major health problem for humans and animals. Drug resistance to currently available treatments only worsen the problem. Drug discovery is expensive and time-consuming, making drug repurposing an enticing option.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Nociplastic pain among individuals with chronic ocular surface pain: one cause for "pain without stain"?

Surv Ophthalmol

January 2025

Michigan Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

Chronic ocular surface pain (COSP) refers to interrelated symptoms such as eye burning, aching, and irritation and can occur as an isolated condition or comorbid with numerous ocular disorders, including dry eye syndrome Treatments for COSP are largely aimed at the ocular surface and modulating pain arising from damaged corneal nerves; however, the average impact of these treatments on COSP are low to absent. A potential explanation for this is that in a subset of patients with COSP, individuals have amplified and/or dysregulated neural signaling and sensory processing within the central nervous system (CNS). As in other chronic pain conditions, this might be the pathogenic mechanism primarily responsible for maintaining pain - a phenomenon now referred to as nociplastic pain.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To determine if endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) should be performed with surgery or as a different step, on acute cholecystitis, and which strategy has the least complications and morbimortality.

Methods: Various databases (PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, CINAHL, Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature, clinical trials, Google Scholar) were searched for randomized trials comparing the different timings for ERCP and cholecystectomy. No language or time restrictions were applied.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To describe progression of best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), full-field stimulus thresholds (FST), and electroretinography (ERG) over 4 years in the -related Retinal Degeneration study and to assess their suitability as clinical trial endpoints.

Design: Prospective natural history study.

Participants: Participants (n = 105) with biallelic disease-causing sequence variants in USH2A and BCVA letter scores of ≥54 were included.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The diagnosis of fungal keratitis using potassium hydroxide (KOH) smears of corneal scrapings enables initiation of the correct antimicrobial therapy at the point-of-care but requires time-consuming manual examination and expertise. This study evaluates the efficacy of a deep learning framework, dual stream multiple instance learning (DSMIL), in automating the analysis of whole slide imaging (WSI) of KOH smears for rapid and accurate detection of fungal infections.

Design: Retrospective observational study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!