Profile of low vision clinics in eastern region of Nepal

Abstract

The entire low vision patients’ file that underwent low vision examination in 2009 in two major eye hospitals was retrospectively reviewed. Out of 1547 cases, 1140 (73.69%) were male and 407 (26.31%) were female. The mean age of presentation was 31.04 ± 20.63 years, of which 89.1 percent were from a rural community, 39.10 percent had avoidable blindness. Refractive error and amblyopia (24%) and retinitis pigmentosa (22.4%) were the most common causes of low vision. Refractive error and amblyopia (30.33%), retinitis pigmentosa (29.03%) and age related macular degeneration (ARMD) (36.5%) were the major causes of low vision in 0—15, >15—60 and >60 years age group respectively. The number of patients 1107 (71.55%) improved significantly with refractive correction. Eighty-eight (5.68%) were prescribed telescopes. For near vision, only 359 (23.2%) patients were prescribed magnifiers. There was a significant improvement of functional vision after provision of low vision devices, particularly for patients with residual vision better than 20/1200.