Ocular findings and vision status of learners with oculocutaneous albinism

African Vision and Eye Health

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Ocular findings and vision status of learners with oculocutaneous albinism
 
Creator Jhetam, Siddeeqa Mashige, Khathutshelo P.
 
Subject optometry; vision science oculocutaneous albinism; nystagmus; visual acuity; contrast sensitivity; reading rate
Description Background: Oculocutaneous albinism results in defects of the visual pathway and ocular structures.Aim: To determine the ocular findings and vision status of learners with oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) as well as to establish the level of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and reading rate improvements following optical correction.Setting: Three special education schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.Methods: A total of 81 learners with OCA participated in this study. Testing procedures included logMAR distance and near visual acuity (VA) measurements, cover tests, retinoscopy (dry), subjective refraction, tangent screen, ophthalmoscopy, contrast sensitivity and reading rate determination.Results: The majority of participants (96.3%) had wheat straw coloured hair and 95.1% had grey irides. All the learners presented with iris-transillumination and an absent foveal reflex and all but one exhibited nystagmus. Esophoria and esotropia represented 72.8% of binocular vision anomalies. Myopic astigmatism was noted in 41.4% of the learners while with the rule astigmatism was predominant (64%). Following optical correction, VA significantly improved from a range of 0.50 to 1.40 logMAR to a range of 0.5 to 1.06 logMAR for distance (p  0.05) and from a range of 0.40 to 1.30 logMAR to a range of 0.30 to 1.08 logMAR) for near (p  0.05). In addition, contrast sensitivity improved from a range of 0.48 to 1.92 logCS to a range of 0.88 to 1.92 logCS (p  0.05). However, the reading rate did not show any significant improvement following optical correction (p 0.05).Conclusion: Learners with OCA exhibited various ocular and vision defects which impair visual functions. Their VA and contrast sensitivity could be significantly improved with optical correction; however, their reading rate was not improved.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2019-01-31
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/aveh.v78i1.466
 
Source African Vision and Eye Health; Vol 78, No 1 (2019); 6 pages 2410-1516 2413-3183
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/466/948 https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/466/947 https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/466/949 https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/466/946
 
Coverage Africa; South Africa — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Siddeeqa Jhetam, Khathutshelo P. Mashige https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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