The use of contact lenses in the visual rehabilitation of low vision patients

Abstract

An intervention study with a universe formed by 76 patients who attended the Low Vision Services at the Arnaldo Milian Castro Provincial University Hospital in Villa Clara during the period from June 1999 to December 2000 was carried out. The aim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of the use of contact lenses in low vision rehabilitation. The sample was formed, after the implementation of the exclusion criteria, by 20 low vision patients who received contact lenses for treatment. An individual form containing the data from each patient was filled out with the aim of determining the behaviour of the different variables, identifying the use of optic aids in the rehabilitation using contact lenses, verifying the change of visual acuity after the correction procedure and assessing the results and the effectiveness of the treatment. Most of the patients involved were over 15 years of age (65%); most of them were males (11 patients) and 65 percent of them were students. Myopia was the ophthalmologic illness with the highest incidence (13 patients). All the patients in the sample received contact lenses improving greatly their long range visual acuity, none of them got worse. The combined used of contact lenses and optical aids in a group of 11 patients improved their short range visual acuity when compared to the use of contact lenses alone.