What Does It Mean to be Nearsighted?
Nearsighted is another term for myopia. Myopia is when your eyes are focused at a distance closer than 20 feet. For mild amounts of myopia it is more difficult to identify distant images, such as road signs. For moderate amounts of myopia reading a book or focusing on the computer is easy, but images past that distance are blurry. For high amounts of myopia, images must be very close to the eye to be focused.
Myopia can develop at any age. It is most common for myopia to develop between the ages of 8 to 12. Increased near work (reading and computer) is the leading cause for this trend. There has been a great deal of research put into finding ways to slow down or avoid myopia development. At this time, the only treatment proven to help is time outdoors. A good goal is one hour per day outdoors and trying to limit time spent on hand held devices.
Time outdoors myopia study.
With myopia, images are focused in front of the retina. To focus images on the retina a concave lens is needed. Concave lenses are thin in the middle and thick at the edges. Concave lenses minify images. For high myopic prescriptions, glasses can make the patients' eyes look small. To reduced minification with myopic prescriptions modern lens features such as high index materials, aspheric lenses and frame designs that are small and circular with thick edges.
It is also worth mentioning that patients with myopia are usually better candidates for Ortho-K, LASIK, PRK or other refractive surgery procedures than patients with hyperopia or astigmatism.
Myopia can develop at any age. It is most common for myopia to develop between the ages of 8 to 12. Increased near work (reading and computer) is the leading cause for this trend. There has been a great deal of research put into finding ways to slow down or avoid myopia development. At this time, the only treatment proven to help is time outdoors. A good goal is one hour per day outdoors and trying to limit time spent on hand held devices.
Time outdoors myopia study.
With myopia, images are focused in front of the retina. To focus images on the retina a concave lens is needed. Concave lenses are thin in the middle and thick at the edges. Concave lenses minify images. For high myopic prescriptions, glasses can make the patients' eyes look small. To reduced minification with myopic prescriptions modern lens features such as high index materials, aspheric lenses and frame designs that are small and circular with thick edges.
It is also worth mentioning that patients with myopia are usually better candidates for Ortho-K, LASIK, PRK or other refractive surgery procedures than patients with hyperopia or astigmatism.
Comments
Post a Comment