Diseases affecting the cornea are a major cause of blindness worldwide, second only to cataract in overall importance. The epidemiology of corneal blindness is complicated and encompasses a wide variety of infectious and inflammatory eye diseses that cause corneal scarring, which ultimately leads to functional blindness. In addition, the prevalence of corneal disease varies from country to coun...

Abstract Background Eye examination and vision assessment are vital for the detection of conditions that result in blindness. Childhood blindness seriously impacts development, education, future employment opportunities affected children. Pediatricians’ knowledge eye diseases is critical prevention through early diagnosis, allowing proper treatment identification requiring referral to an ophtha...

Recent evidence suggests that blindness enables visual circuits to contribute to language processing. We examined whether this dramatic functional plasticity has a sensitive period. BOLD fMRI signal was measured in congenitally blind, late blind (blindness onset 9-years-old or later) and sighted participants while they performed a sentence comprehension task. In a control condition, participant...

We are living in exciting times with many challenges and new opportunities to overcome diseases. The concept and definition of blindness and their major causes worldwide are discussed with reference to the Vision 2020 initiatives launched in 1999 for blindness prevention, with an updated summary. The peculiar problems that exists in Singapore are also presented. Yet, if the world's major causes...

Since vision is the major sensory modality in humans, normal vision is important for the general development of a child. 2 Visual impairment has significant implications for the aVected child and family in terms of education, future employment, and personal and social welfare throughout life. Using the World Health Organisation (WHO) classification of levels of visual impairment (shown in table...

This study explores how maternal interactive behaviors experienced during the childhood of adults with congenital blindness are associated with their subsequent development and personality. Many researchers have found a high frequency of maternal directiveness and overprotection in sighted mother-congenitally blind child relationships. One open question is whether these behaviors may have negat...