Methods for Studying the Visual Analyzer Contrast Sensitivity in Children and Adolescents

The purpose of the work is to familiarize practicing doctors with a new way of determining the eyes contrast sensitivity in children in conditions of a school medical office and an outpatient hospital. Materials and methods. This method is a simple screening method for determining eye contrast sensitivity, requiring a minimum time expenditure (less than 1 minute) and allowing to characterize eyes contrast sensitivity with the usual one-dimensional indicator convenient for the oculum, diagnose at early stages a decrease in refraction anomaly and to detect eye pathology in children and adolescents at an early stage, even before the appearance of complaints and clinical manifestation. The definition of contrast sensitivity is a highly informative study for an accurate assessment of the functional state of the visual analyzer. With the help of this study, it is possible to detect minimal disorders of visual functions in diseases of the retina and optic nerve, disorders of the pathways and the central apparatus of the visual analyzer. The standard techniques are deprived of such high sensitivity (when using Sivtsev-Golovin tables or other similar tables), which help measure the eye resolution at the maximum contrast only. This article describes an easy-to-use and available for screening examination method for determining contrast sensitivity using the "Matrix table of contrast optotypes". The authors also proposed an algorithm for examining children of school age in the conditions of a school medical office and in an outpatient hospital. To conduct a survey on the proposed methodology, there is no need to create special conditions, buy expensive equipment and involve specially trained personnel. Application of this technique improves diagnosis of the eye diseases at the earliest stages, which is impossible when using traditional screening methods of examination in the conditions of a school medical office and an outpatient hospital. This fast and inexpensive method, which does not require bulky ophthalmologic equipment, sensitive at early preclinical stages of ophthalmic diseases, can be recommended for inclusion in the list of mandatory screening studies of the visual analyzer in schoolchildren along with the definition of visual acuity. It allows improving early diagnosis and timely treatment of the pathology of the visual analyzer in children and adolescents. Further research in this direction will be aimed at creating an algorithm for determining contrast sensitivity as an early screening method for the early detection of refractive errors, as well as assessing the performance of the visual analyzer in schoolchildren in visual work with various screen information carriers, for valid recommendations on the duration and nature of the visual load among schoolchildren of different ages.