Repeated low-level red light (RLRL) therapy is showing impressive results for myopia control in children, with a two-year randomized controlled trial showing highly impressive results for slowing and even reversing axial elongation. While reported as safe, a new case report suggests otherwise. Read more about this red hot topic here.
These two studies argue different sides of whether the 20/20 rule of regular breaks from near work can support myopia management, while also investigating other factors involved in digital eye strain such as dry eye symptoms and binocular vision function.
Chinese children aged 6-9 years who had bedtimes later than 9:30pm showed a 1.55 fold risk of myopia compared to those with a pre-9pm bedtime, and were also more likely to have myopic parents, wake up later and spend more time reading or on screens than outdoors in a week. There was no relationship found between sleep duration and myopia.
While 80% of pre-presbyopic adults with Digital Eye Strain symptoms preferred reading with low-addition lenses, the improvement in reading speed was generally small and did not appear to correlate with specific accommodation or binocular vision dysfunctions. In the 8% who showed a significant improvement in reading rate of at least 15%, a majority showed reduced accommodation amplitude.
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.
