Children who are fitted with contact lenses at age 12 or younger are equally likely to be successful long-term contact lens wearers as wearers who were fitted with lenses during their teens.
That’s the finding of a study presented this month at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology by Jeffrey Walline, OD, PhD, of The Ohio State University College of Optometry. Read more…
Orthokeratology — the fitting of special gas permeable contact lenses for the temporary treatment of myopia — may also reduce the progression of myopia in children, according to a new study.
Researchers in Japan studied how overnight wear of ortho-k lenses might affect eyeball elongation in children, which is a cause of myopia progression. Read more…
Myopia (nearsightedness) is becoming increasingly prevalent in the United States and throughout the world. A recent multi-year study found that 41.6 percent of Americans were nearsighted in 1999 to 2004, up significantly from 25 percent in the early 1970s.
The primary cause of myopia progression in children appears to be axial elongation (lengthening) of the eyeball. Some researchers believe the key to slowing myopia in susceptible children is found in how light is focused in the peripheral retina. Read more…
Children who wear contact lenses have fewer dry eye complaints than adult wearers, according to a new study.
Researchers recruited 94 pediatric contact lens wearers, ages 8 to 14. All subjects completed the Contact Lens Dry Eye Questionnaire (CLDWQ) short form, a survey designed to diagnose dry eyes by obtaining information on the frequency of dryness symptoms and light sensitivity within the first two hours of contact lens wear, in the middle of the day and at the end of a full day of lens wear. Read more…
A significant majority of U.S. optometrists say soft contact lenses are an appropriate form of vision correction for children ages 12 and under, according to a new study.
Earlier this year, the American Optometric Association (AOA) and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care sent a survey to 4,004 AOA-member optometrists to determine their contact lens prescribing habits and when they fit children with contacts. Read more…
New specially designed silicone hydrogel contact lenses may slow the progression of myopia in pre-teen and teenage children.
That’s the conclusion of researchers from Australia, China and the United States, who presented the findings of a new study at the recent annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). Read more…
Most children ages 8 to 11 years can successfully wear contact lenses, according to a new study.
Researchers at The Ohio State University College of Optometry evaluated the contact lens wear of 116 children ranging in age from 8 to 11 years who participated in the Contact Lenses and Myopia Progression Study. Read more…
“Can my child successfully wear contact lenses?”
It’s a question many parents ask their eye doctor when their kids want contacts. In this month’s Contact Lens Spectrum, Jeffrey Walline, OD, PhD, and Marjorie Rah, OD, PhD, discuss some of the factors associated with the success (or lack of success) children have when attempting to wear contact lenses.
Recent research suggests that more than 90 percent of children ages 8 to 14 can successfully adapt to wearing soft contact lenses. Because of this high success rate, most children who are interested in contact lenses choose soft lenses.
With gas permeable contact lenses (also called GP contacts), it’s a different story. The success rate fitting children with GP lenses is approximately 55 percent. For this reason, Drs. Walline and Rah say more careful screening of candidates for these lenses may be beneficial.
In a study published in 2009, Dr. Walline found that most children who were unable to adapt to contact lens wear tend to stop wearing the lenses within the first few weeks. But is was unclear to the researchers if these children simply chose not to wear the GP lenses frequently enough and long enough to adapt to them, or if contact lens discomfort or other factors made adapting to the lenses impossible, and this was the reason they wore the lenses less than those who were successful.
From their personal experience fitting children with contacts, the authors have found that children who are squeamish about having their eyes or eyelids touched by their doctor during an eye exam are less likely to succeed with contact lens wear. Children with small eye openings, poor dexterity or poor hygiene also are less likely to wear contacts successfully.
Parents also are a factor in a child’s success wearing contacts, according to the doctors. Parents who are involved without being overbearing offer the best support environment for their kids to wear contacts successfully, they say.
Dr. Walline is an assistant professor at Ohio State University College of Optometry, where he conducts studies of pediatric contact lens wear. Dr. Rah is a staff optometrist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Contact Lens Service, where she specializes in medically necessary contact lenses and advanced contact lens designs.
A study published in a recent issue of Eye & Contact Lens indicates that children ages 8 to 12 are able to successfully wear daily disposable contacts and that most children in the study preferred wearing contact lenses to wearing eyeglasses.
The three-month study was conducted in Singapore, following a protocol similar to the recent Contact Lenses in Pediatrics (CLIP) study in the United States that found similar results among teenagers.
Participants in the study were fit with 1-Day Acuvue and 1-Day Acuvue for Astigmatism disposable contacts. All children were nearsighted (with or without astigmatism) and had not worn contact lenses prior to the study.
Of the 59 children enrolled, 53 (90 percent) completed the study successfully. At the end of the three-month study period, most of the children and their parents reported preferring the contact lenses to eyeglasses for a variety of reasons, including vision, comfort and appearance.
No eye infections occurred during the study, and the only adverse event noted was the development of a chalazion in one child’s eyelid.
(Many eye doctors recommend daily disposable contacts for children who want to wear contact lenses because the single-use lenses eliminate the need for daily lens care and contact lens solutions.)
Eye & Contact Lens is the official journal of the Contact Lens Association of Ophthalmologists.
A new long-term study aims to determine whether orthokeratology with specially designed gas permeable (GP) contact lenses can safely and effectively control the progression of nearsightedness in children.
The clinical study, called the Stabilizing Myopia by Accelerating Reshaping Technique (SMART) study, will compare the progression of myopia among 267 children ages 8 to 14 that have been enrolled in the study. The research is taking place at 10 clinical research sites throughout the United States.
A total of 162 of children enrolled in the study have been successfully fit with the ortho-k contacts and will wear the GP lenses on an overnight basis throughout the five-year study period. The overnight ortho-k lenses enable the subjects to see clearly throughout the day without glasses or contact lenses.
A control group of 105 children in the study will wear silicone hydrogel contact lenses on a daily wear basis throughout the study, replacing the lenses monthly.
At yearly intervals, the children wearing the ortho-k lenses will return the gas permeable contacts to one of the study’s investigators and will be given soft contact lenses to wear temporarily. While wearing the soft lenses, the subjects’ eyes will be examined every three days until their myopia has stabilized.
The investigator will then compare this amount of myopia with how nearsighted the child was at the beginning of the study to determine the net effect of the ortho-k lenses on slowing the progression of nearsightedness. After this comparison is made, the participant will again wear the ortho-k lenses for another one-year period.
The researchers say the five-year SMART study will offer more information about the safety and effectiveness of overnight orthokeratology than previous ortho-k studies, which typically have evaluated subjects over a period of no more than two years and often for six months or less.
You can follow the progress of the research and get the latest updates by visiting the SMART Clinical Trial page on Facebook.
In a new survey, more than half of parents with children ages 8 to 17 who currently need vision correction say their child is interested in wearing contact lenses.
But nearly one-third of those parents have never considered contacts for their child, and another 27 percent haven’t considered it seriously.
The results are somewhat surprising, given other findings of the survey: Parents of kids who currently wear prescription eyeglasses say their child doesn’t like wearing glasses (42 percent), doesn’t always wear them when he should (41 percent) and sometimes feels self-conscious wearing them (40 percent).
The two main reasons parents gave for not being more proactive about contact lens wear for their children: a belief that eyeglasses are easier to clean and care for than contacts (77 percent) and concern about their child’s ability to take proper care of contact lenses (54 percent).
Recent studies, however, demonstrate that most children are capable of caring for soft and silicone hydrogel contact lenses, and wearing contacts may improve a child’s self-perception, especially among girls.
The survey was conducted on behalf of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., the manufacturer of Acuvue brand contact lenses. A full report of the survey can be found on the company’s website.
Wearing contact lenses improves self-worth measures among girls, according to the results of a study conducted at five clinical centers in the U.S. by a collaborative team of optometrists and psychologists.
The three-year study, conducted from September 2003 to October 2007, assessed the effects of eyeglasses and contact lenses on the self-perception of nearsighted children ages 8 to 11 years.
A total of 484 nearsighted children (59 percent female) participated in the Adolescent and Child Health Initiative to Encourage Vision Empowerment (ACHIEVE) study. The children were randomly assigned to wear glasses (n=237) or contact lenses (n=247) for three years.
At the end of the three-year period, all children were surveyed using the Self-Perception Profile for Children scale, a proven measurement tool used in numerous studies in the fields of developmental psychology and social development. The scale evaluates self-perception in five areas: scholastic competence, social acceptance, athletic competence, physical appearance and behavioral conduct. It also provides a global measure of self-worth.
Commenting on the results of the study, lead investigator Jeffrey J. Walline, OD, PhD (Ohio State University College of Optometry) said, “Contact lenses significantly improve how children feel about their physical appearance, acceptance among friends and ability to play sports. Contact lenses even make children more confident about their academic performance if they initially dislike wearing glasses.”
Though children in both groups showed changes global self-worth over the three-year treatment period, the change was only significantly different between contact lens wearers and spectacle wearers among girls who reported low levels of satisfaction with eyeglasses at the beginning of the study.
“Girls are particularly vulnerable to social and psychological distress during the transition years of early and middle adolescence and this data suggests that for girls, in particular, a switch from glasses to contact lenses may result in an improvement in self-perception,” said Mitchell J. Prinstein, PhD, Professor and Director of Clinical Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and co-author of the study.
Based on the results of the study, both researchers say contact lenses provide benefits to children beyond simple vision correction, and that parents and eye doctors should take this into consideration when considering eyewear choices for children.
The ACHIEVE study was supported by funding from Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. (makers of ACUVUE brand contact lenses) and The Vision Care Institute, LLC, a Johnson & Johnson Company.
Source: Girls’ overall self-worth improves with contact lens wear, study shows. (Press release on the Johnson & Johnson website. June 25, 2009.)
