About one third of all eye injuries occur in childhood.
Therefore, parents should be very careful about them, says Prof. Dr. Ziya Kapran, an ophthalmologist at Liv Hospital and explains the damages such accidents cause in children and what should be done about them.
Small injuries may cause big problems
About one third of all eye injuries occur in childhood. Therefore, parents should be very careful about them. During an accident, the integrity of the eye may be disrupted by a perforating or sharp object causing tears or open eye injuries. Especially in closed globe injuries, although the eye reverts back to its normal shape after the injury, such sudden changes in shape may cause direct or indirect damages in the eye. Retinal edema that happens at both the area of impact and the back of the eye is very important. In children, the affected portion of the retina will appear white and at the beginning, the vision is significantly affected due to the edema at the back of the eye. Everything may go back to normal within a few days, or in more severe cases, permanent vision of sight may occur, depending on the severity of the edema. Further, hemorrhages that occur at the extremely rich vascular structure of the eye due to closed traumas fill the vitreous cavity and the coagulation they create may take months to clear. In hemorrhages that fail to clear for a long time in children, follow-up by ultrasonography is needed. Interocular hemorrhage that does not clear or retinal detachment detected in ultrasonography may necessitate an emergency vitrectomy.
Multiple operations may be needed
Eye accidents may cause retinal detachments even in the years to come. All traumatized cases should be given an early-stage detailed retinal examination by dilating the pupil. It is possible to prevent retinal detachment at the early stage by laser or cryopexy treatment. If retinal detachment has already formed, depending on the condition of the tear, scleral buckling surgery or vitrectomy may be performed to fix the condition. In severe cases, 3-port pars plana vitrectomy is performed and in some severe cases, multiple operations may be needed to save the eye.
Seventy percent of the accidents are preventable
In eye accidents, what matters is to prevent the accident. In 70 percent of the cases in children, eye accidents occur due to lack of precautions. In risky activities, protective eyeware is needed. Fire toys such as firecrackers are very dangerous. Even though such toys have been banned, accidents caused by them are still quite frequent. Small particles fired by toy guns cause severe eye injuries. Further, careless casting of fishing lines at the beach causes loss of eyes in many patients. Indeed, fishing line injuries have severe consequences. It is possible to prevent at least 70 percent of all eye accidents by exercising caution.
Source: Haber7
