Kids and contact lenses - a missed opportunity?

View PDF 

This article will address the problem of the community ECP fitting the child from an early age to give him/her a better chance of overcoming amblyopia, and improve self-esteem and confidence. The UN High Commission for Human Rights defines a child as someone aged below 18 years.2 This is an unsatisfactory definition because we are attempting to fit children at primary school age, whose needs are different to teenagers. Other clinical studies are more specific, for example Efron et al3 in his study into prescribing habits defined infants (0-5 years), children (6-12 years) and teenagers (13-17 years). In this article the author will refer to the under-12s as children and the over-12s as teenagers.