Eye ailments on the rise in Telangana

High prevalence of memory and thinking impairment along with vision loss in the elderly

Hyderabad: A concerted effort to identify vulnerable populations with visual impairment has become the need of the hour, as multiple research papers have not only indicated the rising burden of eye ailments among the general population but also linked vision loss to cognitive decline among the elderly population.

While the previous BRS government had exclusive financial allocations for mass eye-screening camps in the form of Kanti Velugu, the Congress government has yet to frame a public health policy to respond to the high prevalence of visual impairment and identify vulnerable populations needing surgical intervention. Currently, the only initiative active in identifying the visually impaired in the State is the Central-government sponsored National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB).

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While the last two initiatives of Kanti Velugu were led by officials from NPCB and the Directorate of Public Health (DPH), Telangana, this time around, there has been no special financial allocation in the State budget for such initiatives. “The State government has to come up with initiatives like mass eye screening programme but so far, we have not received any such directives or financial allocations,” senior officials from the Health Department said.

The burden of eye ailments

A recent study on rural population aged 40 years and above conducted by city-based L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in Adilabad and Mahabubnagar indicated that the age-adjusted and gender-adjusted prevalence of visual impairment was 15 percent among 6,150 individuals.

Published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the study said that the odds of having visual impairment were higher among women, and cataract (55 %) was the leading cause of visual impairment followed by uncorrected refractive errors for visual impairment (VI). A similar population-based study, this time conducted on school-going children (4 to 15 years) in Telangana by LVPEI, indicated a high prevalence of VI. According to the study, out of 7,74,184 children who were screened, the prevalence of VIS among children was 1.16 percent.

Another recent study on the elderly conducted by LVPEI indicated that elderly people with vision loss had a four times chance of cognitive impairment when compared to those without vision loss. While less than 30 per cent of elderly with mild vision impairment had cognitive impairment, this steadily increases as vision impairment worsens, the study said.