October 11 is World Vision Day and it is no coincidence that it is celebrated just after World Mental Health Day (October 10), that is why we publish this article that aims to relate the field of vision and mental illnesses, a relationship that we know, as a result of the latest research, is much closer than it seemed until recently.
World vision day
From Área Oftalmológica Avanzada, we want to raise awareness of the need to perform regular vision checks, especially when there is a family history of serious eye diseases. In previous articles we have emphasized that many pathologies with irreversible loss of vision, have a genetic basis that we can know through genetic analysis or reveal in a complete revision of the visual apparatus. Therefore we recommend revisions from the third year of life, each 2 years in ages less than the 40 years and each year above the 40 years.
Together with this basically ophthalmological recommendation, we wanted to highlight the role that vision plays in “mental” disorders. In previous articles we have seen how vision can be altered in mental disorders, even before other more obvious signs and symptoms appear.
At school age, learning disorders such as dyslexia, attention disorders or social maladjustment syndromes, can manifest an alteration in the dynamic vision, easy to demonstrate by the ophthalmologist or the optometrist accustomed to this type of explorations. The detection of these problems is key to start a diagnosis that must be confirmed by the psychologist or child psychiatrist, we can even collaborate with these specialists in the treatment of the process, through therapies with visual stimuli aimed at improving attentional factors.
In adults, the importance of vision in disorders of senile dementia and especially in Alzheimer's has been mentioned, both in the diagnosis and in its evolution. The cognitive deterioration of these patients usually affects areas related to vision, its study by ophthalmologists and specialized optometrists, can help to locate the affected brain regions and at the same time, through specific therapy, help stimulation and delay in the evolution of the disease.
With regard to Alzheimer's, the most significant in relation to vision is the evidence that the course of the disease depends to a large extent on the visual conditions of the patients. Those individuals who have good vision have fewer problems of orientation, better conditions to perform cognitive therapies and find it easier to establish social relationships with other people while the affections of visual disturbances or simply poor vision, for something as simple as using old glasses with a graduation that is no longer correct, is a very important handicap for the evolution of Alzheimer's, in these cases the evolution of the disease is much faster.
On World Vision Day, we want to insist on this need to review vision, both to treat and prevent ophthalmological problems and in other situations where the relationship with vision is not so apparent, as is the case of mental disorders. Vision is a basic element to relate to the outside world, so it is essential to maintain the visual apparatus in the best possible conditions and that is achieved with periodic reviews to the ophthalmologist.
