Biomedical subjects

G Kvarnström

Publications and source records attributed to G Kvarnström.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Visual screening of Swedish children: an ophthalmological evaluation.

PURPOSE: This study describes the various ophthalmological conditions detected in the Swedish visual screening program for children. METHODS: The study was longitudinal and retrospective. All children (3126) born in 1982 in three Swedish municipalities have been followed from birth to ten years of age. Visual acuity was examined at the ages of 4, 5.5, 7 and 10 years. Before the age of 4, a gross examination of the eyes was performed. RESULTS: The prevalence of ametropia in the population was 7.7%, the prevalence of strabismus 3.1%, and the prevalence of organic lesions 0.6%. Seven children (0.2%) were visually handicapped (visual acuity </=0.3 in the better eye). Refractive errors and microtropias were mainly detected at the age of 4, when the first visual acuity test was performed, while manifest strabismus was in many cases detected before this age. With this screening and subsequent diagnosis and treatment, the prevalence of deep amblyopia (visual acuity </=0.3) has been reduced from 2% to 0.2%. With treatment, 47% of the amblyopic children achieved a visual acuity better than 0.7. CONCLUSION: Visual screening is effective in detecting visual and ocular disorders. Most conditions are discovered before the age of 6. Compared to an unscreened population, the prevalence of amblyopia is greatly reduced.

Age Distribution↗

PubMed1998

Screening for visual and ocular disorders in children, evaluation of the system in Sweden.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the visual screening system in Sweden. We have made a retrospective investigation of the results of screening for ocular disease and visual impairment of all children born in 1982 in three Swedish communities. The records from screening examinations from 0 to 10 y and from diagnostic follow-up at the departments of ophthalmology that the children were referred to were inspected. The data were used to evaluate the efficiency of the Swedish visual screening system. The study included 3126 children. The attendance rate at the 4-y examination was better than 99%. The sensitivity of the 4- and 5.5-y screening examinations was on the average 92% and the specificity was 97%. The average number of false negative cases at 4 y was 5.6 in 1000 (0.56%). With this screening and subsequent diagnosis and treatment, the prevalence of amblyopia at different levels of visual acuity at the age of 10 y was: 0.06% with visual acuity < or = 0.1, 0.9% with visual acuity < or = 0.5 and 1.7% with visual acuity < or = 0.7. In spite of largely unchanged pressure of amblyogenic factors in the population, the prevalence of deep and moderate amblyopia has been markedly reduced by screening and early treatment.

Amblyopia↗

PubMed1995

Screening for ocular dysfunction in children: approaching a common program.

According to the general principles of screening, detection of visual impairment in children is worthwhile, since the condition is a serious health problem, reliable diagnostic tests are available and effective treatment is possible in most instances of ocular and visual dysfunction. However, an evaluation of the screening procedures has not been properly done and the cost-benefit of screening has not been studied. The aim of the present study is to perform a systematic analysis of the screening programs for detection of visual dysfunction. In the screening two parts can be separated, one that concerns the more serious ocular and visual conditions which have to be discovered by general survey methods very early in life, and one that involves detection of less serious conditions, mainly amblyopia, which can be diagnosed by testing for monocular reduction of visual acuity at about 3-4 years of age. The performance characteristics of the screening programs used in Sweden and Canada were evaluated and found to be very favourable. Based on the analysis and the evaluation, recommendations are made on programs for vision screening in children that could be applied more widely. The program could involve all or parts of the following: 1) A careful inspection of the eyes in the neonatal period and preferably also examination of the red reflex with the ophthalmoscope. 2) Children at high risk for ocular and visual disorder, i.e. those born prematurely before 32 weeks of age, or with genetic disease, hearing deficit and/or neurological and mental disorder, should be examined at the proper age by an ophthalmologist. 3) All staff at pediatric departments and child health care centers should be familiar with the visual development of the normal baby and should be alerted to the various symptoms and signs which first warn parents that there may be a visual defect. An inspection of the eyes to detect squint should be part of all pediatric examinations. 4) A screening test of monocular visual acuity in 4 year-old children can be reliably performed by non-ophthalmic personnel after proper training. The screening test should be repeated by school nurses during the first grade of school, and at regular intervals during the school years. 5) The children that screen positively should be seen by ophthalmologists, and in some cases by orthoptists, without undue delay for diagnosis and treatment.

Child↗

PubMed1981

Effects of grating stimulation on visual acuity in amblyopia.

Thirty-one children with amblyopia were treated with CAM vision stimulation. Twenty-one of them had previously been treated with conventional methods but failed to improve further. The conventional therapy was continued during and after CAM. Grating stimulation was the first treatment attempted for the rest of the children. Most children in both groups showed improved distance visual acuity after CAM-treatment and no one suffered a loss. The average visual acuity improvement was the same in both groups of children and did not vary with age. The improvement amounted to about 50% of the visual acuity before CAM, irrespective of the pre-treatment acuity level. We conclude that CAM-stimulation can be useful in cases where occlusion or other amblyopia treatment has failed, but that some form of treatment must be continued if visual acuity is to be maintained after the CAM-treatment period.

Adolescent↗