title: Impact of low vision rehabilitation on functional vision performance of children with visual impairment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the impact of low vision rehabilitation on functional vision of children with visual impairment.
  
  
  METHODS
  The LV Prasad-Functional Vision Questionnaire, designed specifically to measure functional performance of visually impaired children of developing countries, was used to assess the level of difficulty in performing various tasks pre and post visual rehabilitation in children with documented visual impairment. Chi-square test was used to assess the impact of rehabilitation intervention on functional vision performance; a P < 0.05 was considered significant.
  
  
  RESULTS
  LogMAR visual acuity prior to the introduction of low vision devices (LVDs) was 0.90 ± 0.05 for distance and for near it was 0.61 ± 0.05. After the intervention, the acuities improved significantly for distance (0.2 ± 0.27; P < 0.0001) and near (0.42 ± 0.17; P = 0.001). The most common reported difficulties were related to their academic activities like copying from the blackboard (80%), reading textbook at arm's length (77.2%), and writing along a straight line (77.2%). Absolute raw score of disability pre-LVD was 15.05 which improved to 7.58 post-LVD. An improvement in functional vision post visual rehabilitation was especially found in those activities related to their studying lifestyle like copying from the blackboard (P < 0.0001), reading textbook at arm's length (P < 0.0001), and writing along a straight line (P = 0.003).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In our study group, there was a significant improvement in functional vision post visual rehabilitation, especially with those activities which are related to their academic output. It is important for these children to have an early visual rehabilitation to decrease the impairment associated with these decreased visual output and to enhance their learning abilities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, Daryaganj, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Suma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ganesh
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Bhagat Phool Singh Government Medical College for Women, Khanpur, Sonepat, Haryana, India.
authors.forename: Sumita
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sethi
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, Daryaganj, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Srivastav
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, Daryaganj, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Amrita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chaudhary
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.
authors.forename: Priyanka
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Arora
keywords: Functional vision performance; visual impairment; visual rehabilitation