How often should you check your eyesight? The hospital's chief physician explains
It depends on whether you are 40 years old or older.
Viktor Isachkin. Screen capture from video: BelarusOneTV / YouTube
Viktor Isachkin, chief physician of the 10th City Clinical Hospital in Minsk, told "Belarus 1" how often one should visit an ophthalmologist and how long patients wait for cataract removal surgery.
When should you check your eyesight?
The first ophthalmological examination should take place one month after a child's birth. This is necessary to rule out congenital pathologies — cataracts, glaucoma, and retinal diseases.
The specialist should examine the child a second time at one year old. This time, they check the refraction of the eye (the ability to correctly focus light to produce a clear image), and look for nearsightedness or farsightedness.
The third examination is conducted at three years old — before the child starts kindergarten. The next mandatory visit is before school, at 6 years old. Subsequent examinations should be conducted annually to avoid missing the development of "school-related" myopia.
As for adults, the specialist advises visiting an ophthalmologist and measuring intraocular pressure every two years until the age of 40 (if nothing bothers you), and annually after 40. If a patient's close relatives suffered from glaucoma or had cataracts, annual doctor visits should begin as early as 35 years old.
What operations are performed at the 10th hospital?
Viktor Isachkin says that the hospital's specialists undertake to treat almost all vision pathologies that they can diagnose.
"Of course, no one in the world can cure all pathologies. Sometimes we encounter cases where it is very difficult to provide help to a person. Sometimes these are far advanced cases of the disease, when the optic nerve dies, among other issues," the specialist explains.
According to Isachkin, the most common pathology in adults is cataract. Myopia and glaucoma are also among the top three. It is the latter that most often leads to blindness, which is why early diagnosis and timely treatment are important.
According to the chief physician, the waiting time for a planned cataract removal surgery at the capital's 10th hospital is currently two months. Part of this time is spent on collecting tests.
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