One of the most common findings in our clinic is the increase in myopia in young children. Myopia – often referred to as nearsightedness – is a common eye health condition in which the eyeball elongates, causing light rays to focus incorrectly in the eye, thus making distance vision blurry.
Myopia is more than an inconvenience. With higher levels of myopia, the deformation stretches and thins the inner parts of the eye, which increases the risk of retinal detachment, cataracts, glaucoma, and even blindness. Because the eye grows throughout childhood, myopia generally develops in school-age children and tends to progress and worsen over time.
Researchers have tried to explain what exactly causes myopia development and progression. Studies in the 1960s showed that the condition was more common among genetically identical twins than non-identical ones, suggesting that susceptibility is strongly influenced by DNA. Gene-finding efforts have now linked more than 100 regions of the genome to myopia. But it was obvious that genes could not be the whole story.
Researchers have consistently documented a strong association between measures of education and the prevalence of myopia. In the 1990s, for example, they found that teenage boys in Israel who attended schools known as Yeshivas (where they spent their days studying religious texts) had much higher rates of myopia than did students who spent less time on their books.
After studying more than 4,000 children at Sydney primary and secondary schools for three years, researchers found that children who spent less time outside were at greater risk of developing myopia.
The researchers agree that the cause of myopia is complex and its prevention is everyone’s top priority. This is why The Brilliant Futures™ Myopia Management Program has been created. It is a comprehensive approach to myopia management built around MiSight® 1 day contact lenses, the first and only contact lens FDA-approved to slow the progression of myopia* in children age 8-12 at the initiation of treatment.
This program is designed to offer children more than just vision correction, but can also slow myopia progression during the growing years. In clinical trials, MiSight® 1 day contact lenses were shown to slow the progression of myopia in children by 59%. The MiSight® 1 day lens uses ActivControl™ Technology to slow the elongation of the eyeball by utilizing an optic zone concentric ring design with alternating vision correction and treatment zones. This design appears to diminish the triggers that lead to myopia progression. These contact lenses for kids are already being worn successfully by myopic children around the world.
Though myopia may begin mildly, it may become quickly progressive and may increase in severity from moderate to high myopia if treatment is delayed. Please schedule your myopia consultation with any of our 5 doctors who are all certified in the MiSight® The Brilliant Futures™ Myopia Management Program.
References:
THE MYOPIA BOOM by Elie Dolgin
The Brilliant Futures Myopia Management - MiSight
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/mc-smc100620.php