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If small children cannot tell their parents about poor eyesight, because they do not know what can be seen differently, then those who enter adolescence are guided by other motives. Awareness of their individuality, attractiveness to the opposite sex encourages them to hide problems from their parents. And it often happens that parents learn about vision problems in children not from themselves, but from classmates who were entrusted with a “terrible secret”.
But the sooner treatment is started, the easier it is to avoid vision problems in the future. What are the current methods of correction and treatment of myopia tells children’s ophthalmologist Elena Kudryashova, head of the children’s eye clinic.
“Now in many clinics there is a very useful technique: checking the accommodation reserve (maximum eye performance), the expert says. – Suppose a child in the third grade begins to deteriorate his eyesight, now myopia is already – 2. With the help of a check, we understand that by the last grade of school, vision will drop to – 6. Myopia stabilizes only by 18 – 20 years. It happens spontaneously. But before this age, vision can deteriorate significantly.
Teachers complain that they do not have enough first desks to seat all the children with poor vision. We can say that myopia is an epidemic of modern schoolchildren. Every third today finishes school with glasses.
Causes of children’s myopia
Myopia (or myopia) is one of the most common diseases in school-age children. She has several reasons.
Heredity
If one or both parents have myopia, then the child is likely to have it too. According to some experts, it rises to 70 percent if both mom and dad are wearing glasses.
congenital myopia
It appears in the first year of life. Often occurs in premature babies, associated with weakness and increased extensibility of the sclera.
Acquired myopia
Most often, myopia is detected at 9 to 12 years of age. There are many reasons for its development:
- too rapid growth of the child, including the eyeball, the so-called physiological myopia;
- increased loads – too much reading, lessons, when the child spends hours looking at a book or notebooks;
- uncontrolled love for TV, video games, gadgets;
- poor diet – lack of vitamins and minerals.
How to treat children’s myopia
With progressive myopia, the eyeball is pathologically lengthened, its structures are stretched, which can eventually lead to thinning, ruptures, detachments – that is, the most serious complications.
It is impossible to completely get rid of the onset of myopia. You need to understand that minus 3 or 4 will no longer become minus 1 again. But if treated, you can stop at the number at which myopia was detected, or significantly reduce its growth. Therefore, treatment is necessary.
Usually, ophthalmologists recommend various procedures of physical, optical and medical effects. But the mode and combination will always be determined individually.
“A treatment program is developed after a comprehensive diagnosis (examination of the fundus, peripheral vision, etc.), which allows us to identify the causes and mechanism of its progression, the presence of possible complications — dystrophic changes in the fundus and retina,” the expert comments. – And only then the decision on procedures is made.
When glasses are needed
Some parents think that if glasses are put on a child, then vision will continue to fall. This is not true. If the decrease in vision is 0,5 and below (the child does not see below the fifth line in the table of signs), he needs glasses. But it is important to understand that the mode of wearing glasses is determined by the degree of vision loss, the accommodative ability of the eye, and is strictly determined by a pediatric ophthalmologist.
Glasses are prescribed if myopia is not yet stable and continues to grow. If the doctor prescribed glasses for distance, then in no case should these glasses be used for reading or writing.
“So that parents do not worry and do not play the role of a warden, we often prescribe bifocal glasses for schoolchildren,” explains ophthalmologist Elena Kudryashova. – That is, the glass in such glasses is imperceptibly divided into 2 parts. The top of the glass is for distance, the bottom of the glass is for near work. Children very quickly adapt to such glasses and absolutely do not notice through which part of the glass they are looking. As a result, they clearly see the board and do not spoil their eyes, looking through glasses at the notebook.
Contact correction in a child – what to choose
Adolescents, at their request, are more likely to be prescribed contact lenses. But also with reservations.
Soft contact lenses can only be worn permanently if the myopia is stable. If myopia is still growing, then the lenses can be used temporarily – only during active sports.
Night (orthokeratological) lenses are one of the modern methods of correction. At night, the child sleeps in lenses, during the day he walks without lenses and glasses. Indispensable if the child is involved in professional sports and is not able to wear glasses.
But one contact correction is not enough. Neither glasses nor lenses will stop the growth of myopia. If left to chance, myopia can reach very high values.
Treatment of myopia with drops
In addition to various therapies, atropine 0,01% drops may be recommended.
“We adopted this method of stopping the progression of myopia from our foreign colleagues and are achieving very good results,” says Elena Kudryashova. – Atropine in such a low concentration practically does not expand the pupil (and the child sees perfectly close), but effectively inhibits the growth of myopia. But this technique is effective only in combination with other procedures and under the strict supervision of a doctor. And these are not at all the drops that are sold over the counter in pharmacies.
Drops for myopia are prescribed to relax the accommodative muscle. But the muscle, in addition to relaxing it, must be trained, forcing it to work correctly. To train the accommodative muscle, a therapeutic, so-called hardware, treatment is carried out. The right combination and training time on the apparatus allows you to create a supply of accommodation for the child. Such treatment should be carried out 3 – 4 times a year. It necessarily passes under the control of the encephalogram, which allows you to avoid possible complications and, if necessary, to cancel individual methods. Unfortunately, there is no such practice in district clinics, in the offices of vision protection.
Prevention of myopia
Do not forget about the correct mode of the student. These are walks in the fresh air during daylight hours, limiting the time spent on gadgets, good lighting while doing homework, and feasible physical activity.
International studies have shown that daily exposure to the open air during the daytime for 2 hours or more reduces the risk of myopia by 36%.
It’s important
The most radical method of getting rid of myopia once and for all is laser vision correction. But! It can be done only after 3 years of absence of vision loss.
What is the danger of gadgets for the eyes of schoolchildren
The distance between the eyes and objects of visual work – books, computer screens – must be at least 40 cm and strictly fixed. If this distance is constantly changing (as when working with gadgets), the child’s eyes are in constant tension, which can provoke the development of a spasm of the muscle that is responsible for focusing (the ciliary muscle) and, as a result, the development of myopia. It is for this reason that it is extremely harmful to read in transport.
Try to keep your child alone with gadgets for no more than half an hour. Then you need to get up, stretch, walk.