What is myopia?

Also known as: near-sightedness.

Myopia is a common vision problem that’s usually referred to as nearsightedness and is classified as a “refractive error” (when the eye doesn’t focus the light correctly). Myopia is when your child can see things close up but has difficulty seeing objects far away. It is frequently discovered when the child has difficulty reading the blackboard from his/her desk at school at around the age of 9-10 years, but can see when standing next to an object or book.It often gets worse as it grows during childhood but stabilizes around the age of 20 years.

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Reviewed by: Jack Wolfsdorf, MD, FAAP

This page was last updated on: 1/29/2019 3:21:13 PM