Ocular dysfunction associated with mental handicap.

The aim of this article is to show the main general and ocular characteristics of a group of 46 mentally handicapped people of different IQ and age who were provided with visual care. Many different syndromes and neurological alterations have been described in the literature. The case types and number of people studied for each condition attending our clinics were: syndromes: Down's (25), Soto (2), West (2), Rubinstein-Taybi (1), triple X (1); neurological conditions: cerebral palsy (8), microcephaly (5), hydrocephaly (2). In our study the ocular findings were high incidence of ametropies: 58.7% hyperopia, 21.7% myopia, 19.5% astigmatism and 28% strabismus.