What Is Lazy Eye?
9. Prevention
Studies have shown that vision screening programs are easy and can help reduce the cost and incidence of amblyopia as it helps with early detection and treatment. In a 9-year study where a volunteer photoscreening program is performed, 147,809 children were screened and 4.2% (6247) children were referred to professionals. Photoscreening is an automated technique where a special camera uses the red reflex to identify possible issues.
It is an easy and fast way to learn and is widely used in community group screenings. Out of these children, 24.3% were seen by an ophthalmologists while 76.7% were assessed by optometrists. In this study, the screening cost was about $9 per child. This shows that cost-effective screening is possible using a volunteer system. The method used for screening will depend on the child’s age and experience of the examiner.
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