Glasses for mild long-sightedness in kids

Lorian

just make sure they had proper tests. personally I'd take them to another opticians and get a second test.

from experience anything involving a machine and not a properly qualified person doing a test with charts and multiple lenses should be double checked.

GlasweJen

No optician would use a refractor head on a small child because they wouldn't fit in one! All tests on children under about 10 would have to be done with a trial frame. Also at 5 the younger would have been cyclo'd so the responses to the test are largely irrelevant (brilliant when you have one faking to try get glasses).

All eye tests in the UK are carried out by people who have a degree in optometry and are registered with the GOC, pre-registration optoms are still GOC registered and are supervised by experienced optoms, if you think your test is sub par then talk to the lead optom in the practice.

onlyroz

I don't believe I suggested that I thought the optician was sub-par. I'm amazed at what they're able to achieve these days even with the most awkward of children - they came up with a prescription largely by monitoring her pupil response to various lenses, with very little input from her. My memory of eye tests over the years seemed to involve much tedium of "read me back line 3 on the chart" or "which colour are the rings blackest on". It seems like you don't have to do anything like that much manual testing these days with all the equipment they have available.

nedmundo

TBF, the technique you describe is retinoscopy - a highly skilled objective technique to assess refractive error. We often use this with patients where a reliable subjective refraction (i.e. with input from the patient) isn't possible - e.g. small children.

I wouldn't worry, retinoscopy is the most accurate technique available for that age group.

Tigsteroonie

nedmundo wrote: »

TBF, the technique you describe is retinoscopy - a highly skilled objective technique to assess refractive error. We often use this with patients where a reliable subjective refraction (i.e. with input from the patient) isn't possible - e.g. small children.

I wouldn't worry, retinoscopy is the most accurate technique available for that age group.

That's very interesting - I did wonder how on earth they assess our son's eyesight given that he is non-verbal with SLD, and I knew that they put drops in his eyes (as we had to give permission); but nobody had explained how the test works (I'm only used to the old "read the chart" method).

I was given bifocal lenses at the age of 10, with the "suggestion" that, if I wore them all the time, they might correct my eyesight somewhat. They had the opposite effect, my sight suddenly got much worse and I became very short-sighted (coke bottle style). I've now hit my mid-40s, and have started needing varifocals.