Teaching Elementary School Health Education/Personal Health and Physical Activity/Eye Care

Eye examinations, correcting refractive errors, understanding eye conditions, and protecting eyes are important ways to preserve sense of sight.

People who have the sense of sight use it to acquire more than 80% of their knowledge.

Terms to know:

• An ophthalmologist is a physician who specializes in medical and surgical care and treatment of the eyes.

• An optometrist is an eye care professional who is specially trained in a school of optometry.

• Visual acuity is sharpness of vision.

• A refractive error is a variation in the shape of the eyeball that affects the way images are focused on the retina and blurs vision.

• Myopia, or near sightedness, is a refreactive error in which distant objects appear blurred and close objects are seen clearly.

• Hyperopia, or far sightedness, is a refractive error in which close objects appear blurred and distant objects are seen clearly.

• Astigmatism is a refractive error in which irregular shape of the cornea causes blurred vision.

Correcting Refractive Errors

• Bifocals - (glasses) are lenses that correct for both close and distant vision.
• Radial keratotomy- is a type of surgery that improves myopia by changing the curve of the cornea.
• Photorefractive keratectomy -is laser surgery that reshapes the cornea to improve myopia.