Etiology of visual impairment among ophthalmic patients at Federal Medical Center, Abeokuta, Nigeria

The number of visually impaired people is increasing worldwide, but this is partly attributable to the increase in population and aging 6. The prevalence of 9% blindness in this study was similar to previous hospital studies [7, 8], but higher than the prevalence of community studies 4, 9, 10, 11, 12. This may be due to research design and biased selection in hospital-based research. However, Rabiu 13 reported a prevalence of 2% in poor community surveys of distant places in the Nigerian communities in northern rural areas.

The main cause of blindness in this study was cataract as with previous reports from developing countries 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17. Cataracts continue to be the leading cause of blindness in Nigeria and other developing countries, and lack of management programs and inadequate adult population has been a major source of outstanding 13. Cataract surgery in most developing countries is still very poor13. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, efforts should be made to increase the number and quality of cataract surgery.

Glaucoma is the second most common cause of blindness in the surveyed population, the third leading cause, as previously reported in 7, 8, 10, 11, 15. 18 Because glaucoma causes irreversible blindness and because glaucoma patients in this area often have hospitals with bilateral blindness 18, this is causing great concern.

The main cause of low vision is unrefined refractive error. It happens to one patient out of every five people, followed by cataract. This is consistent with previous studies [19], [20] and an estimate of the causes of global visual impairment 2 by the World Health Organization. Two universities and several junior high schools appeared in the international metropolitan avector probably because of the high percentage of people with mild to moderate visual impairment in the ophthalmologic office due to uncorrected refractive error.

It is worth noting that the proportion of blindness and low vision caused by retinal diseases is increasingly higher in this study. This is due in part to changes in personal lifestyle in developing countries, increased prevalence of diabetic retinopathy, increased adult mouth resulting in age-related macular degeneration, and a reduction in the cause of infectious blindness 2, 21, 22

As with other hospital-based studies, as more blind patients are found in the hospital environment and may not reflect real prevalence of community-based prevalence, the main limitation of this study One is selection bias. In addition, due to the backward design, not all examinations were done by one ophthalmologist. However, it highlights the main causes of blindness and low vision in people with community eye problems, and may be a target for blindness prevention and control programs. Proper group-based research addresses some of the limitations of this study.

Dr. Simon P. Kelly, ophthalmologist at the Bolton Hospital in the UK said, "More than a quarter of all age-related macular degeneration associated with blindness and visual impairment is thought to be due to current smoking or past smoking "I say. BMJ was issued on March 4, 2004. After considering three studies involving 12,470 patients, he reached his conclusion. Swedish researchers asked participants about smoking habits and screened blood-encoded protein sequences, now called shared epitopes (SE), a major genetic risk factor associated with rheumatoid arthritis. Smokers currently using SE genes are 5 times more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those who have never smoked and lack the SE gene.

Visual impairment is a comprehensive term used to explain blindness that can be inherently caused by many different medical conditions. Some common causes of visual impairment are glaucoma, retinopathy of prematurity, cataract, retinal detachment, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, cortical visual impairment, infection and trauma. These are just a few of the conditions that affect vision, each with its own characteristics and clinical features. In addition, the effects of visual impairment on individual learning are related to the onset, severity and type of vision loss, as well as any coexisting obstacles that may be present in children. Therefore, considering visual impairment, correspondence, change, and strategy in all classrooms must be designed according to each student's individual needs. No model for everyone