H L Liu
Yuncheng Medical School, Department of Rehabilitation, Yuncheng, Shanxi, China
Background and present situation
According to the Chinese Ministry of Public Health, the population of people with low vision (with a visual acuity of less than 0.3 to light perception) on China's mainland is about 5 million, of whom 67% are elderly persons. The number will increase year by year because of ageing population. Low vision rehabilitation was first introduced to China in the early 1980s. In 1991, low vision rehabilitation was brought into the Eighth Five-year Work Program for People with Disability. Since then 140,000 low vision people were given optical devices instead of ordinary spectacles for functional training as a result of establishing county-level low vision rehabilitation departments, staff training, developing and supplying optical devices (over 20 kinds by now).
The Swedish low vision rehabiltation model (introduced to China recently by Dr. Örjan Bäckman) is of great interest to China. To train qualified future low vision therapists for teamwork with ophthalmologists and optometrists is an urgent matter. Great efforts must also be made to spread low vision knowledge to the public as well as to ophthalmologists.
Plans for developing low vision in China
The paper will discuss the future development of low vision services in China. In the next five years China will provide 100,000 low vision people with optical devices and train 20,000 parents of low vision children for home rehabilitation. In every region, plans are to establish at least one hospital whose eye department can develop low vision rehabilitation with reference to diagnosis, prescription of optical devices, training and follow up, i.e. a low vision center. The Disabled Persons' Federation will coordinate a national network, organize and refer low vision persons for diagnosis and prescription of optical devices, and be in charge of training parents for home rehabilitation.
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