September 28th 

What are some of the medical reasons for deteriorating eyesight? This question will help refine my topic for the year. Vision can deteriorate due to many elements depending on exposure to outside variables and the issue a person is dealing with. While researching, I encountered numerous eye diseases associated with old age, but I have always been more interested in conditions in children. Many factors and body parts start deteriorating with age, but what about vision loss in young adults? Most people develop refractive errors, a sliver of eye conditions fixed with glasses, contact lenses, surgery, etc. My first portion of this need-to-know was looking into what causes these errors and what damaged eyes look like.

We see through light, which passes through the eye. Each part has a function in getting that light signal to the brain, which creates the image of what we are looking at. Light rays focused by the cornea go through the lens and hit the retina, which changes light into an electrical signal that the brain processes. A change in the shape of a part of your eye results in refractive errors, as the light is not focused, creating blurry vision. Blurry vision can include not seeing far away objects (myopia) or the opposite, hyperopia. Sometimes, refractive errors are not consistent with the distance of an object, resulting in astigmatism. Of the types of refractive errors, myopia is common in young children, while presbyopia forms in adults/elderly. These issues can snowball with age, as stated by clevelandclinic.org, where I found my answers to the difference between a healthy and struggling eye. 

Although I want to focus on refractive issues rather than those that come with old age, there is some unpreventable overlap due to that snowball effect. The article mentioned above states that refractive errors put you at risk for glaucoma, lazy eye, and cross eyes. Continued issues listed by my second source, academic.eb.com, include asthenopia and esotropia. The second website I used for my research this week consisted of an extensive list of all eye conditions, allowing me to look into some of the future issues that could arise out of refractive errors. This research led to more questions as I could not find the connection between my focus conditions and glaucoma, which results from increased pressure, which I can look into with a peer researching glaucoma. I found a common point between lazy eye and cross eyes: the critical role of the retina. It is vital to continue going to the doctor to prevent a condition from worsening and possible eye issues. I am interested in how these issues are connected and why problems in the retina cause so many issues.