“Eye diseases can be slow, gradual and sometimes without symptoms, and when the problem occurs the damage is now irreversible. Prevention allows us to safeguard our eyesight. Very important sight because it controls 84% of relationships with the outside world. That’s why a simple medical-ophthalmological visit provides prevention, diagnosis, therapy, prescription and cure”. So Matteo Piovella, president of the Italian Ophthalmological Society, speaking today in Rome at the presentation of the toll-free numbers of public utility assigned to the scientific societies Sin (nephrology), Sigo (gynecology and obstetrics), Anmco (hospital cardiology) and Soi (ophthalmology), accredited by the Ministry of Health and affiliated to the Federation of Italian Medical Scientific Societies (Fism).
“With a single access – explains Piovella – we safeguard our sight for life. We have a specific calendar: a visit at birth, within three years on the first day of school, from 6 to 8 years for myopia – a pathology which is becoming endemic in Asia – then you go to 40, then from 40 to 60 every two years and from 60 once a year.”
On the occasion of National Ophthalmology Day March 22, with the slogan ‘To see, be seen!’ – it was announced during the press conference held in the headquarters of the Ministry of Health – the Soi will launch the toll-free number 800189441.
“A very important service – underlines Piovella – because we must provide information and remember that in our country the diseases that endanger sight affect over 3 million people and even more are those at risk because the incidence of glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and maculopathy increases with age and chronic disease”.
Thanks to the digital age “we can, through images, verify the difference of a thousandth of a millimeter in the retinal structures between one view and another – highlights the president Soi -. This gives us tools that we did not have before. In summary, we manage to save the sight of one million and 300 thousand people every year, but it is necessary that people know about this opportunity Among the requests we receive from patients there is above all the great concern of losing their sight: people know that there are of the potential to be calm, 70% of the vision diseases that will then follow during the life span we can detect them from childhood”.