This study demonstrated that man-made indoor environments may provide a myopigenic effect from reduced illumination and spatial frequencies. More research is needed to confirm if the mechanism for form deprivation from reduced spatial frequencies in humans is similar to that found for animals, and what improvements can be made to indoor environments to offset the risk for myopia.
By using a wearable device to objectively monitor visual behaviour, this study found progression in young myopic children was correlated with less time outdoors, more time working at near for online learning and less time spent wearing their glasses.
This large cohort study analysed myopic prescriptions from 136,333 French children and teens. Factors influencing myopia progression were found to include a child’s age, gender and refraction of their first optical correction. Children aged 7-10yrs showed the fastest progression.
This paper identified time spent outdoors as the key factor in predicting better myopia control outcomes in children wearing with MiSight 1 day contact lenses. Other factors which weren’t predictive included age, refraction, binocular vision findings, pupil size and time spent at near.
Teenagers in the Netherlands were able to spend time outdoors during the COVID pandemic but still significantly increased near work on digital devices.. This is expected to give an increase in myopia prevalence and progression in European teens but to a lesser extent than in Asia where there was restricted outdoor time with stricter lockdown.
This study investigated the working distance and head posture of Chinese myopic children while reading, writing and playing video games. The average working distance across all tasks was 24.5cm, with the shortest working distance and largest head declination observed while children played video games. There was no influence of level of myopia or accommodative lag on working distance or head position.
Myopia is becoming more common, as knowledge on detection and management increase. When should you start myopia control? Here we present an overview of when you might start myopia management across the spectrum of patient presentations. Since every child and their family are unique, we also point you towards more information for each situation.
This new systematic review and meta-analysis has evaluated use of smartphones and tablets separately to computer use and other non-screen based near work. Results are still mixed but overall there was a trend for a slightly increased risk with mobile device use alone, which increased when combined with computer use. More objective measures of screen time are needed to further explore this link.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw widespread home confinement, increased screen time in children with home-based learning, and decreased time spent outdoors. Several recent publications have explored the impact of this period of time on the incidence and progression of myopia, lifestyle behaviours, digital eye strain, myopia treatment efficacy and more. What should we now monitor and discuss with our young myopic patients in the post-COVID world?
A vision-screening program was able to provide data before and after Chinese schoolchildren were confined to home learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, more hours were spent indoors and less time was spent outdoors during this time, across all age groups. The younger schoolchildren had increased incidence of myopia and faster progression, whereas an increase in the prevalence of high myopia was found in the older children.
