Adults tend to have regular eye exams, but exams are just as important for your school-age children. Just because your child passes a vision screening at school does not necessarily mean that he or she has perfect vision. While school screenings are important, having your child see an eye doctor is necessary. Vision exams should start early, and the entire family can come see the best family eye doctors in Fort Myers, FL at Elmquist Eye Group.
Why A Vision Screening Is Not Enough
Vision screenings are wonderful, but they are designed to screen out kids with obvious serious vision problems. Conditions often flagged are the child’s inability to read a road sigh or blackboard. Passing a vision screening does not put the child in the clear. The child absolutely needs to have a comprehensive eye exam to not only effectively and thoroughly check vision but also to rule out eye diseases and eye cancer.
Why Your Child Needs an Eye Exam
More and more children are developing nearsightedness (myopia) at an early age. In fact, most eye doctors now consider myopia to be an epidemic. When children become nearsighted early in life, the nearsightedness progressively worsens as the child ages. Later in life, he or she is then at much greater risk for conditions that threaten sight, such as glaucoma and cataracts. However, when myopia is detected early, we can take measures to slow the progression and reduce the child’s risk of eye issues later in life.
Poor school performance is often attributed to poor vision. In fact, visual learning accounts for the large majority of what a child must learn in the classroom. This is particularly true given that schools today have much more screen time for learning. An annual eye exam could mean the difference between success and poor performance in the classroom, and it is the only way to ensure that your child is seeing clearly. Naturally, good vision is important out of the classroom as well, for activities like sports and teen driving.
Many other serious health issues are often first detected in an annual eye exam, so these exams are important for the entire family. In fact, many patients are undiagnosed for conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, only to first learn about the concern in a routine eye exam.
Eye Care for the Entire Family
At Elmquist, our professional and caring team will conduct a comprehensive eye exam to evaluate your eye health and vision. We do an in-depth assessment of the retina and surrounding blood vessels to look for signs of other diseases that are often first visible in the retina and surrounding structures. We also evaluate for eye diseases, many of which have no notable symptoms early on, therefore the annual eye exam is often the only way to detect trouble. Early detection is the key to early effective treatment, so we hope we have convinced you regarding the importance of eye exams for every member of your family.
Because you live in southwest Florida, you have the distinct advantage of being near the best family eye doctors in Fort Myers, FL. Give us a call today at Elmquist Eye Group. We are ready to meet and treat your family.