J Korean Ophthalmol Soc.  1991 Mar;32(3):318-326.

A Clinical Study on Blindness

• Jang HJ
• Yang KJ
• Park BI

Abstract

The causes of blindness may be related to a person's life style, social status, age, sex, place of residence and era. To investigate the general aspects of the causes of blindness, authors reviewed clinical records of 16,671 patients who visited the Ophthal mology Department of Chonnam University Hospital in the years 1977, 1980, 1985, and 1989. After reviewing records of patients who had corrected vision below 0.1, we have obtained following results. 1. In the studied sample, 1,696 patients were identified as blind. The blind males(11.0%) were more prevalent than the blind females(9.3%) with a significant difference(p<0.05) and the blininess occurred most frequently in the sixtieth age group. 2. The leading etiologic factors of the blindness were cataract(43.0%) followed by trauma(19.4%), general eyeball dise~ses etc. In 1977 the main cause of blindness was general eyeball diseases. Thereafter, cataract was the leading cause of the blindness. 3. Visual acuities of studied samples were in the order of hand motions, 0.02-0.06, counting fingers, and light perception. The most common causes of absolute blindness were trauma and general eyeball diseases. In the case of visual acuity of better than hand motions, cataract was the leading cause. Cataracts were more prevalent in the age group above fiftieth, while trauma was the chief cause in those under thirtieth. 4. Suggested etiology of disease which directly cause blindness included unknown etiology(54.8%), trauma, undetermined and systemic diseases. In the unknown etiology group, cataract and glaucoma were distributed in high proportion while in the trauma group corneal diseases were the chief cause.

Keyword

cause of Blindness; cataract; general eyeball disease; trauma; vitreous and retinal disease

MeSH Terms

Blindness*
Cataract
Corneal Diseases
Fingers
Glaucoma
Hand
Humans
Jeollanam-do
Life Style
Visual Acuity