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Vision Testing
November 30, 2007
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A new test could have your baby seeing better for a lifetime. Thomas Schiller is
a pediatrician for Lee Memorial Health System. He says, "Vision testing in babies
is a new arena. For years and years we had no means of testing babies without sending
them to a pediatric eye doctor. The problem is that about 1 in 20 babies, and that
adds up to about 200-thousands kids each year in our country has a weakness of an
eye." Left undiagnosed a weakened eye can quickly develop into a lazy eye. For many
children that can lead to a special prescription glasses or multiple eye surgeries.
"If you wait until they're toddlers a lot of times the damage is already done so
if you catch them early, before there
is nerve damage then you can prevent this
whole scenario of lazy eye," says Dr. Schiller. Thanks to new technology, early
detection and treatment is possible for babies with vision problems. Dr. Schiller
says the technology is called the "Visual Evoke Potential or VEP. There's a machine
that we now have hat can test a baby's vision." He says the test is fairly simple
and quick. "It's a pretty cool gadget. We glue some electrodes on the head and it
picks up the brain waves as the baby looks at a computer screen that has different
size lines on it. If the baby will just focus on it, one eye then the other for
just a few moments we can verify the entire visual pathway is working." Dr. Schiller
says the success rate of the test is high and is usually covered by health insurance.
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