Outcome of Visual Acuity Rehabilitation of Low Vision in Children after Congenital Cataract Surgery: A Case Series

Congenital cataract is the major cause of treatable visual impairment in children. The first 6 weeks of children’s age is the critical period for visual experience. Based on this, it is suggested that surgery in congenital cataract cases should be performed as soon as possible. The visual outcome after cataract surgery depends on the surgeon, the age of the children, and other visual conditions. Management of the visual rehabilitation in this case is very challenging. Most of the problem after congenital cataract surgery is amblyopia. The purpose of this paper is to report the visual acuity outcome after visual rehabilitation of children who had been performed cataract surgery. This case is a case series of the visual acuity outcome of children who had been performed bilateral cataract congenital surgery in dr Syaiful Anwar Hospital, Malang, Indonesia . The data was obtained from medical record and we compared the visual acuity before and after visual rehabilitation and the outcome based on their timing when they were performed the surgery and the visual acuity correction was obtained. There were 5 cases; 4 cases was bilateral aphakia because of microcornea and 1 case was bilateral pseudophakia with high myopia. Their ages ranged fom 20 months – 12 year old. Most of the children got spectacle for their visual acuity rehabilitation and the power of pectacle lens was based on streak retinoscopy. The aphakia and pseudophakia children obtained better visual acuity after visual rehabilitation. The younger the age in which they underwent surgery and the earlier they got visual correction after cataract surgery the better their visual acuity outcome will be. The success of visual rehabilitation depends on ocular condition, age, the visual rehabilitation technique and the compliance of the patients and the parents.