Tag: eye strain

Healthcare, Optometry

March Is Workplace Eye Wellness Month

20-20-20 Rule

Prevent Blindness, the nation’s leading volunteer eye health and safety organization has declared March as Workplace Eye Wellness Month. In a pre COVID world this topic would be geared mostly to work environments such as construction or medical labs, but now that working from home has become the new normal during the pandemic, it is crucial to address the specific challenges associated with working remotely. 

In a work setting such as manufacturing or construction, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) requires employers to provide eye and face protection against chemical, environmental, radiological and mechanical irritants and hazards. Various forms of safety eyewear include prescription and non-prescription safety glasses, goggles, face shields, welding helmets, and full face respirators. 

WFH (working from home) has created increased awareness of a common condition known as computer vision syndrome (CVS). Symptoms of CVS include blurred vision, eye strain, headaches, and tired, burning, itchy eyes. Home offices which are often just the kitchen table or a folding chair and desk set up in the basement lend themselves to poor ergonomics which also contributes to exacerbating digital eye strain. 

Some tips to reduce symptoms of CVS include:

  • Placing computer screens 20-26” away from the eyes and below eye level
  • Computer glasses with antireflective coatings and blue light filters
  • Following the 20-20-20 rule – every 20 minutes look 20 feet away for 20 seconds 
  • Using high quality artificial tears for dry eye
children, Healthcare, medical, Optometry

Vitamin “See”

yellow health medicine wellness

If you’ve read enough of my blog posts, you’ve probably figured out that I am a little obsessed with both the short and long term effects that digital devices have on our eyes. I am particularly interested in the effects it has on kids since many of them are exposed to some kind of tech as early as the first year of life. Recently,  a company called EyePromise debuted a vitamin named Screen Shield Teen aimed at kids aged 4-17 that is a supplement meant to support and preserve visual comfort and wellness for this age group. The main ingredients are 5 mg of dietary zeaxanthin and 2.5 mg of lutein which are antioxidants that help eradicate free radicals produced by blue light and help protect the macular pigment which is crucial for developing eye health. The vitamin is a fruit punch flavored chewable that is gluten free and can be taken together with regular multivitamins. Increasing amounts of children and teens are coming into my practice with complaints of tired eyes, headaches and eye strain from too much screen time and aside from the common sense advice of decreasing screen time this vitamin could play a part as well in protecting young eyes from future damage. 

photography of women using mobile phones

Optometry

Are You Addicted To Your Smartphone?

apple applications apps cell phoneThe other day I got an alert on my cell phone telling me that I had spent an hour that day on my phone. After I got over the shock of being spied on by my phone I clicked on the alert to check it out. A new feature offered up by the latest apple software update iOS 12 allows you to track how much time you spend on your phone and breaks it down even further by how much time you spend on each app. Another interesting feature is the ability to limit how much time on you spend on each app – for example – if you decide you are wasting way too much time on Facebook you can set a time limit of an hour a day and after that you will not be able to access the app anymore. There is also a new feature called “downtime” which limits your usage of certain apps before bedtime. 

apple apple device cellphone deviceWhy is this important? There are many reasons too much screen time is not good for you, ranging from decreased socialization to lack of productivity to outright cell phone addiction (yes this is a thing). From an optometric perspective, too much screen time leads to a condition called Digital Eye Strain. Symptoms of this are tired eyes, headaches, fatigue, dry eye, light sensitivity, and a range of other annoying symptoms. While we can prescribe glasses for this condition (stay tuned for more on this in another post) the best way to combat eye pain from too much screen time is to limit the amount of time you spend on screens. Kudos to Apple for creating this useful new tool.