Low vision care in patients with amblyopia following surgery for childhood cataract in India

Purpose: To report the role of comprehensive low vision services among children who underwent cataract surgery at a tertiary eye-care center in southern India. Study design: A non-comparative retrospective study of consecutive patients. Methods: Forty-four patients referred to the vision rehabilitation centers with a clinical diagnosis of aphakia/pseudophakia in childhood were included in this retrospective study. The patient evaluation included a comprehensive low vision examination. Low vision devices (LVDs) were prescribed on the basis of task analysis, patient performance, and preference. Improvement in at least one WHO category of visual impairment after using the LVDs was considered a success. Results: Applying the WHO criteria of blindness, 54% (14/26) of the low vision subjects (<3/9–1.5/30) improved to the no impairment category (=3/9) and 13% (1/8) of those classified as blind (<1.5/30-NLP) improved to the low vision category after using LVDs. The optical devices prescribed for distance ta...