There are many visual tests that can be performed to assess your child’s vision. It’s important for your pediatric ophthalmologist to test the strength of the eyes as a team and independent of each other. Engaging and pleasant tests are done to determine the health of your child’s eyes. One of the key ways of assessing the need for glasses or contact lenses is the use of dilating drops to examine the eye. Once these drops have taken effect, your eye doctor can measure the focusing error of the eyes and determine the overall health of the eyes through the use of specialized equipment.
Depending on the type of eye drop used, the duration of effect can last from two hours to one to two days, with most patients staying dilated for several hours. Until the dilating medicines wear off, your child will have difficulty seeing close up. Some individuals of a lighter colored iris tend to stay dilated longer than average. Sunglasses are a helpful means to limit the sensitivity to bright sunlight.
