Kwale District Eye Centre - Kenya

Kwale District Eye Centre Staff 2004

Low Vision Unit

This photograph of the KDEC team was taken at the clinic in February 2004; Dr Helen Roberts is seated in the centre of the picture.

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The Low Vision Unit

The latest addition to the facilities at KDEC is the low vision unit, which is primarily for the treatment of children. The photograph below shows the new two storey building that houses the Low Vision Unit and Outpatients Department.

Low Vision describes a situation in which the person is not blind but neither do they have normal vision. Now the therapist has a quiet area where children can be assessed in an optimum situation away from the hustle, bustle and distractions of the main clinic. Often a low vision sufferer will see a distorted image, which can actually be more misleading than being blind.

People with low vision are often helped by magnifying glasses or telescopes. Babies have poor eye sight. Their perception and interpretation of the visual image, which they receive develops and continues to develop over the first 7 years of life. If the eye does not receive a clear image within this time, the child's development of vision will not proceed normally.

Often this means that children with poor vision need to have their sight stimulated by bright, visually interesting objects. In the natural setting in Africa such objects are rare. The parents may not know that this should be done or how to do it.

We recruited a teacher and sent him on a one year course to learn about low vision and how to address it; we call him the Low Vision Therapist.

The assessment of a small child can be very challenging and usually takes up to one hour. The photograph on the left shows the low vision therapist at work in the unit

Other Centres in the Coast Province refer children to KDEC for assessment.

Much of the therapist's time is spent in the field following up children at home and in school. He also trains the trainer of the village health committees and addresses community gatherings to try and reduce the stigma if visual disability.

In rural areas children who are partially sighted or blind are often considered a curse by their families and hidden away from society in their huts. It takes a lot of counselling to persuade these parents to agree to help their own children.