HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought new syn­dromes in­to fo­cus. To­day, on WORLD OP­TOM­E­TRY DAY, the world is shift­ing lens to fo­cus em­pha­sis on our eyes.

Do you sit in front of a screen at work for hours then leave with a headache, sore, dry, blur­ry eyes and a painful neck? If so, wel­come to Com­put­er Vi­sion Syn­drome (CVS), a con­di­tion just wait­ing to hap­pen to those who use a screen for more than six hours a day.

Com­put­er vi­sion syn­drome, al­so re­ferred to as dig­i­tal eye strain, de­scribes a group of eye and vi­sion-re­lat­ed prob­lems that re­sult from pro­longed com­put­er, tablet, e-read­er and cell phone use. Some re­searchers ar­gue that CVS is the “Num­ber one oc­cu­pa­tion­al haz­ard of the 21st cen­tu­ry” and Pae­di­a­tri­cians have shared an in­crease in vi­sion con­cerns in re­cent ad­mis­sions and clin­ic vis­its.

Dig­i­tal Eye Strain

The eye­strain is part­ly caused by the lack of con­trast on a com­put­er screen (com­pared with ink on pa­per) and the ex­tra work in­volved in fo­cus­ing on pix­els of light. By midlife, the eyes lose cer­tain ca­pa­bil­i­ty of pro­duc­ing lu­bri­cat­ing tears. Ir­ri­ta­tion sets in, adding to blur­ri­ness and dis­com­fort.

Both adults and chil­dren de­vel­op the symp­toms when they spend too long look­ing at a dig­i­tal screen. View­ing a com­put­er or dig­i­tal screen of­ten makes the eyes work hard­er. As a re­sult, the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics and high vi­su­al de­mands of com­put­er and dig­i­tal screen view­ing make many in­di­vid­u­als sus­cep­ti­ble to the de­vel­op­ment of vi­sion-re­lat­ed symp­toms.

Un­cor­rect­ed vi­sion prob­lems can in­crease the sever­i­ty of com­put­er vi­sion syn­drome (CVS) or dig­i­tal eye strain symp­toms. View­ing a com­put­er or dig­i­tal screen is dif­fer­ent from read­ing a print­ed page. Of­ten, the let­ters on the com­put­er or hand­held de­vice are not as pre­cise or sharply de­fined, the lev­el of con­trast of the let­ters to the back­ground is re­duced, and the pres­ence of glare and re­flec­tions on the screen may make view­ing dif­fi­cult.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO TO PRE­VENT CVS:

Ap­ply­ing the 20-20-20 Rule

The eas­i­est way to avoid dig­i­tal eye strain or eye strain from any ex­tend­ed near-fo­cus task like read­ing is to make sure to blink of­ten and to look up from your screen or close-up work every 20 min­utes and fo­cus at least 20 feet away for 20 sec­onds. This strat­e­gy of fre­quent re-fo­cus­ing lets the eyes re­lax and re­set is com­mon­ly re­ferred to as the 20-20-20 rule.

How can I re­duce ex­po­sure to blue light from dig­i­tal de­vices?

One of the rea­sons that dig­i­tal de­vices put strain on adults and a child’s young eyes is that they may be ex­posed to too much blue light. In­ter­est­ing­ly, both the sun and in­door lights emit some lev­el of blue light but man­ag­ing the amount of dam­ag­ing blue light ex­po­sure re­al­ly counts. Cer­tain bands of blue light may be harm­ful to the reti­na of the eye over time. So what’s a work­able so­lu­tion?

- One so­lu­tion is to in­vest in blue light eye­glass­es that re­duce the amount of blue light that en­ters the eyes from com­put­er, tablet and smart­phone screens. A num­ber of lens man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­duce lens­es that fil­ter blue light. Your op­tometrist and oph­thal­mol­o­gist can pro­vide help­ful in­for­ma­tion.

- An­oth­er op­tion is to use blue light screen fil­ters that fit di­rect­ly over your mon­i­tor. If your child is us­ing a phone, you can al­so try a pro­gram which is free to use and ad­justs screen colour ac­cord­ing to the time of day.

- When chil­dren go out­side, wear­ing a pair of sun­glass­es is ide­al to pro­tect their eyes from dam­ag­ing blue and UV light from the sun.

Eye Com­fort and Safe­ty Tips for Adults, Chil­dren and Screens

The best way to deal with pos­si­ble ef­fects of screens on chil­dren’s vi­sion is to help them set good habits for use. These same tips are good prac­tices for adults and any­one suf­fer­ing from chron­ic dry eyes or eye strain.

- Fol­low the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 min­utes, look at least 20 feet away for 20 sec­onds.

Set a timer to re­mind the child how of­ten to look in­to the dis­tance.

- Al­ter­nate read­ing an e-book with a re­al book and en­cour­age chil­dren to look up and out the win­dow every oth­er chap­ter.

- Avoid us­ing screens out­side or in bright­ly lit ar­eas, where the glare on the screen can cre­ate strain.

- Ad­just the bright­ness and con­trast of the screen so that it feels com­fort­able.

- Use good pos­ture when us­ing a screen. Poor pos­ture can con­tribute to mus­cle tight­ness and headaches as­so­ci­at­ed with eye strain.

- En­cour­age your child to hold dig­i­tal me­dia far­ther away: 18 to 24 inch­es is ide­al.

- Re­mind them to blink when watch­ing a screen.

Em­pha­sise the big three: sleep, healthy nu­tri­tion and ex­er­cise.

All three are es­sen­tial to op­ti­mal brain growth and de­vel­op­ment and health and well­ness for chil­dren and adults alike. Ex­ces­sive screen time can im­pact all three. Chil­dren who spend more time in front of screens have been shown to eat more fast food and less fruits and veg­eta­bles and get less sleep and ex­er­cise.

There­fore, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant to in­cor­po­rate healthy lifestyle choic­es as part of the dai­ly rou­tine, as well as bal­anced screen time to achieve op­ti­mal eye health.

Look out for HEALTH PLUS every Tues­day for more in­for­ma­tive and health­ful ar­ti­cles. If you have any ques­tions or con­cerns re­gard­ing this top­ic, please email Guardian­Health­Plus2020@gmail.com