Print ISSN: 2395-1443
Online ISSN: 2395-1451
CODEN : IJCEKF
Indian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology (IJCEO) is open access, a peer-reviewed medical journal, published quarterly, online, and in print, by the Innovative Education and Scientific Research Foundation (IESRF) since 2015. To fulfil our aim of rapid dissemination of knowledge, we publish articles ‘Ahead of Print’ on acceptance. In addition, the journal allows free access (Open Access) to its content, which is likely to attract more readers and citations of articles published in IJCEO. Manuscripts must be prepared in more...Original Article
Author Details :
Volume : 6, Issue : 2, Year : 2020
Article Page : 222-226
https://doi.org/10.18231/j.ijceo.2020.048
Abstract
Aims: To analyse the causes of visual impairment amongst the patients coming for the visual handicap
certificate and its application in eye health planning to prevent the blindness.
Methods and Materials: A retrospective data analysis of medical records of 553 people who had applied
for the visual handicap certification. Examination was done by the ophthalmologists appointed for the
handicap board. BCVA < 20>
BCVA20/200 or less is blindness category II to IV(75%to100%).Data was analysed using SSPE software
and Chi square test for significance.
Results: The prevalence of male patients was significantly higher than that of females (p<0>
of them belonged to age group of 16 year to 45 years of age, 332 (60.03%) individuals had mild
visual Impairment(< 40>
in162(29.29%) individuals had sever visual impairment to blindness, over all phthisis (p=0.0001)was the
most common cause followed by corneal opacity(p=0.0249)and Amblyopia (p=0.03). Most of the causes
are preventable and some of them are emerging as complications of cataract surgery, increased road traffic
accidents and occupational hazards.
Conclusion: Visual handicap registers are useful for the rehabilitation of visually impaired individuals
and to assess the pattern or causes of blindness in particular area. The most common etiological factors
causing visual impairment in our study are preventable so we propose the empowerment of the school health
system and general health delivery system, early detection of amblyogenic factors and its timely treatment,
applying strict safety precautions to factory workers who are prone to ocular injuries and increased safety
for road traffic in Northern part of Maharashtra.
Keywords: Visual impairment, Amblyopia, Phthisis, Handicap certificate.
How to cite : Khan M G G, Gawai D S, Choudhary K G, Khannar A S, Visual handicap certificates: A tool to evaluate the causes for permanent visual impairment in Northern Maharashtra. Indian J Clin Exp Ophthalmol 2020;6(2):222-226
This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.