Profile of low vision clinics in Eastern Region of Nepal: a retrospective study

The entire low vision patients’ file that underwent low vision examination in 2009 in two major eye hospitals was retrospectively reviewed. Out of 1547 cases, 1140 (73.69%) were male and 407 (26.31%) were female. The mean age of presentation was 31.04 ± 20.63 years, of which 89.1 percent were from a rural community, 39.10 percent had avoidable blindness. Refractive error and amblyopia (24%) and retinitis pigmentosa (22.4%) were the most common causes of low vision. Refractive error and amblyopia (30.33%), retinitis pigmentosa (29.03%) and age related macular degeneration (ARMD) (36.5%) were the major causes of low vision in 0—15, >15—60 and >60 years age group respectively. The number of patients 1107 (71.55%) improved significantly with refractive correction. Eighty-eight (5.68%) were prescribed telescopes. For near vision, only 359 (23.2%) patients were prescribed magnifiers. There was a significant improvement of functional vision after provision of low vision devices, particularly for patients with residual vision better than 20/1200.