At the first consultation in the clinic, each patient undergoes comprehensive testing. This includes:
- Clarifying the child’s developmental and medical background – medical history, eye diseases in the family, etc. In cases of strabismus, we ask you to bring past photos of the child.
- Visual sharpness tests – relative to age, development and the child’s ability to cooperate.
- Orthoptic tests – including eye movement testing, strabismus testing involving nine directions of near and far sight, and measuring focal vision. We also conduct a Prism Adaptation Test (PAT), critical for evaluating the strabismus level.
- Sprinkling drops for pupil expansion – usually two drops in each eye, twice, at five-minute intervals. After applying the drops, we wait about half an hour for the pupils to fully expand. The drops do burn a little but only for a few seconds. Sometimes older children complain of near-sighted blurriness after receiving the drops. This blurriness may continue for up to about six hours and even 24 hours in children with lighter-colored eyes.
- Optometry tests – children’s optometry tests are very different from adult tests. Determining the eye’s strength (the number) is done objectively, without needing the child’s cooperation. A specialist pediatric optometrist conducts the tests using a retinoscope and test lenses after administering expansion drops. The optometrist also checks the child’s existing or previous glasses. Remember to bring the child’s glasses with you to the clinic!