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Near tasks may worsen myopia in children
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Researchers found that myopic children have close working distances for near tasks such as reading, writing and playing video games, which may increase the risk of myopia progression.
“We recommend that near testing during ophthalmic examination of all primary schoolchildren should be performed at 25 cm instead of 33 cm in China,” Jinhua Bao, MSc, and colleagues wrote in their study in Optometry and Vision Science.
“The children experience high levels of hyperopic defocus because of a large accommodative lag during near work every day at a young age, thereby increasing the risk of greater myopia progression,” they added. “Improving near posture through appropriate desk and chair settings during near work might help to slow the progression of myopia in children.”
Bao and colleagues analyzed the working distance and head declinations of 120 children with myopia between 6 years and 13 years old while they were reading, writing at a desk or playing video games, according to the study. The children had a spherical equivalent refractive error between -0.50 D and -6.50 D, with astigmatism (1.50 D or less) and anisometropia (1.25 D or less).
Reading material and writing assignments for the children were adjusted based on their grade level. The working distance was defined as the base of the child’s nose to the center of each line for reading and writing and the center of the screen for the video game.
The researchers found that the children had a mean working distance of 21.3 ± 5.2 cm for video games, 27.2 ± 6.4 cm for reading and 24.9 ± 5.8 cm for writing tasks. The mean head declination was 63.5 ± 12.2° for video games, 37.1 ± 12.8° for reading and 44.5 ± 14.1° for writing.
Bao and colleagues noted a significant decrease for head declination over time for the reading task and a significant decrease in working distance over time for reading and writing tasks. – by Jeffrey Craven
Disclosure: The researchers received financial support from the International S&T Cooperation Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Essilor International SA.
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