Reduced blinking, incomplete blinks during computer-use contributes to dry eye. Incomplete blinks also a major factor

Computer vision syndrome (CVS), a common condition condition caused by increased computer, tablet and smart-phone use.  It is associated with dry eye disorders. We also know that computer uses blink less than normal. A new study published in the journal Optometry and Vision Science examined whether visual symptoms following computer use were associated with either less blinking or a more incomplete blinks. They also examined whether increasing the blink rate would reduce CVS symptoms.  Read more.

Digital eye strain - who's at risk?

DIGITAL EYE STRAIN – WHO’S AT RISK?

Anyone in front of a digital screen is at risk, regardless of age, occupation or lifestyle. While certain factors can increase the possibility of digital eye strain symptoms, generally speaking, people who spend more than two hours a day on computers or other digital media devices should take a second look at their computer use, think about how their eyes and vision feel when using computers and other digital devices and think about taking steps to fight eye strain, visual fatigue and computer vision syndrome.

 

People use digital devices for many hours every day for fun and for work.  And both work and recreation are made more difficult, painful, uncomfortable and less enjoyable because of digital eye strain.  Optometrists that treat this problem are often blessed with the reward of making an immediate, important and significantly positive impact on a patient’s daily life.

SYMPTOMS OF DIGITAL EYE STRAIN and COMPUTER VISION SYNDROME

• Eye redness or irritation can result from staring at the bright backlight of screens for a long period of time.

•  Dry eyes can be caused by the fact that we blink less when looking at digital screens. Dryness can also result from computer screens that are set at eye level.  

•   Blurred vision.  This can be caused by screen glare and the right computer eye-wear can reduce it. The ill effects of glare increase with bright overhead lights, older computer monitors, dirty screens, and outside sun light entering the computer area.

• General visual fatigue is common when using digital devices, especially ones with small screens like iPhones because it results from straining to see small fonts and images. Properly prescribed computer frames and lenses can help significantly with this problem.

• Back pain and neck pain can occur because of poor body posture when a screen is not positioned properly. Many doctors prescribe computer eye-wear with a certain lens that will bring the computer image closer to the eyes and reduce bank and neck pain.

• Headaches can be caused by repeated eye strain.  The easiest way to avoid this is the seek the right eye-wear from your doctor of optometry that are designed to fight eye strain and have lenses custom prescribed and designed for your digital behavior patterns and your eye and facial anatomy.  Precision and accurate measurement is key.

In a survey of nearly 10,000 adults, ages 18 and older, the Vision Council identified digital use trends trends by gender, age and lifestyle.

GENDER:

Women are more likely than men to experience problems associated with digital eye strain.  About one third of women report eye strain and neck and shoulder pain, and at least one in five women has suffered dry eyes (24 percent), blurred vision (22 percent) and headaches (23 percent).

Men and women report similar use of digital media devices. Women are slightly higher consumers of smartphones, tablets and laptops, while men report higher regular use of desktop computers and video game systems.  Gender doesn't appear to affect usage; men and women both average about four to six hours daily, and 10 percent of men and women report 12 or more hours daily of digital media use. Both men and women say recreation (e.g., video games, computer games and sport channels) is their primary reason for using digital media devices.

AGE:

Digital eye strain symptoms are common in adults under 55. But adults ages 45 and older are 14 percent to 23 percent less likely to experience headaches than are younger people.  This may be due to the fact that people from different generations prefer different types of digital media .

The most popular digital device for all ages is still television.  Adults under 35 are more likely than other ages to use devices like laptops (76 percent), smartphones (66 percent), video games (49 percent) and tablets (30 percent).

Individuals 55 and older are less likely than other ages to use laptops (52 percent), smartphones (22 percent), video games (10 percent) and tablets (20 percent).

Regardless of age, the majority of adults use digital media four to six hours a day.  For about 14 percent of young adults (ages 18-34), average usage is more than 12 hours daily.

Recreation is the main reason for digital media use across age groups. However, mid-career adults (ages 35-55) report higher use for work and business-related reasons.

LIFESTYLE:

People who use digital media for work are more suffer digital eye strain more than any other lifestyle group –

39% of them have eye strain, 42% have neck and shoulder pain, 25% have dry eyes and 23% have

blurred vision.    The reason for this higher incidence of symptoms is pretty obvious - they spend more time than other groups working on digital devices.  Among work-related digital devices users, more than 30 percent spend at least six hours a day, and 20 percent spend and incredible 10 to 12 hours a day working on a digital device.

Read the entire report on digital eye strain here.

Related posts:

Yoga fights computer vision syndrome and keeps your eyes healthy
Sep 13, 2012

Your iPhone can be a pain in your eye
May 26, 2012

Three million Canadians suffer from computer vision syndrome
Feb 19, 2012


How the iPad can wreck your vision and what to do about it
Mar 15, 2012

Yoga fights computer vision syndrome and keeps your eyes healthy

It turns out that that the ancient Indian practice of yoga can help fight a 21st century health issue: computer vision syndrome. Yoga is an ancient Indian science which includes the practice of specific postures, cleansing practices, regulated breathing and meditation. Readers of this blog know that dry eyes are one of the symptoms of computer vision syndrome and arise, in part, because we blink less when using the computer. Other symptoms include eyestrain, irritation, tired eyes, a burning sensation, redness, blurred vision, headaches, neck pain and double vision 

Common ways to fight computer vision syndrome include the use of specially prescribed and designed computer eye wear that reduces eye strain and also keeps the eyes hydrated by increasing the humidity between your eyes and the lens of the eye wear.

In addition to computer eye wear, a study published in the journal Head and Face that examined visual discomfort in professional computer users in Bangalore shows that a combination of yoga practices  may help alleviate the symptoms of computer vision syndrome.

The study researchers, some of whom are affiliated with the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation in Bangalore, India, took two hundred and ninety one professional computer users and divided them into two groups.  One group practiced yoga for one hour a day, five days a week for sixty days while the other group did no yoga but did their regular recreational activities for the hour.  Both groups were assessed at baseline and after sixty days for self-rated visual discomfort using a standard questionnaire. 

The researchers employed general whole body yoga postures as well as a subset eye-specific yoga movements, called Trataka.  Interestingly, trataka resembles some exercises employed during optometric vision therapy to treat eye movement disorders.  Here is how the authors of the study described the yoga that they prescribed: 

The 60 minute yoga program included yoga postures (asanas, 15 minutes), regulated breathing (pranayamas, 10 minutes), exercises for the joints (sithilikarana vyayama, 10 minutes), visual cleansing exercises (trataka, 10 minutes), and guided relaxation (15 minutes).

The practice of trataka involves two sets of eye exercises. (i) Shifting the gaze (by moving the eyes alone) in eight directions. During this exercise, practitioners are asked to use their right thumb (and when gazing to the left, their left thumb) as a cue to direct their gaze. The directions are up, down, up to the left, down to the left, up to the right, down to the right and rotation of the eyes clock-wise and anti clock-wise. (ii) During the second exercise, practitioners gaze at a flame placed at eye level without blinking. While gazing at the flame, practitioners are instructed to focus their gaze on the flame and subsequently defocus while keeping their gaze on the flame.

Throughout the practice practitioners should sit upright and should avoid moving their head to shift their gaze.

These techniques were selected either because previous research showed that they reduced physiological arousal  or based on our unpublished clinical observations

While the scores for visual discomfort of both groups were comparable at baseline, after 60 days there was a significantly decreased score in the yoga group, whereas the no-yoga group showed significantly increased scores.  This means that the yoga group had less discomfort whereas the no-yoga group had more discomfort after 60 days.

The study's results suggest that yoga can alleviate the self-reported symptoms of visual discomfort associated with computer vision syndrome.

Your iphone can be a pain in the eye

People who use computer, ipads, smart phones and play computer games commonly experience computer vision syndrome. It's not a new problem any more: the term “computer vision syndrome” was defined about 20 years ago when personal computer use at home and work became prevalent.

Computer vision syndrome describes eye-related problems associated with computer use. Studies have shown that computer work is demanding for the eyes with respect to eye movements known as accommodation and convergence and the visual strain of computer use increases with aggravating factors such as refractive disorders (near sightedness or far sightedness), convergence insufficiency, and screen and surface glare.

Computer vision syndrome includes eye-related symptoms such as dry eyes, tired eyes, and blurred vision and symptoms that are not eye-related such as pain around the eyes and in the neck and shoulders.

But what is responsible for eye muscle pain? In a study published in Optometry and Vision Science, researchers sought to determine whether eye pain was related to computer use. To do so the researchers designed a study to investigate the development of discomfort symptoms in relation to muscle activity and muscle blood flow in one of the eye muscles - the orbicularis oculi muscle - during computer work with visual strain.

The study's authors took a a group of healthy young adults with normal vision and recorded eye-related symptoms during a two hour working session on a laptop. Muscle load and blood flow were also measured.

The study's results show that during two hours of visually demanding computer work, there was a significant increase in the following symptoms:

• eye-related pain and tiredness, 
• blurred vision, 
• itchiness, 
• gritty eyes, 
• light sensitivity, 
• dry eyes, and 
• tearing eyes. 

Muscle load in the orbicularis oculi muscle was significantly increased above the baseline measurement and blood flow increased significantly during the first part of the working sessions before returning to baseline. There were correlations between eye-related tiredness and orbicularis oculi muscle load and eye-related pain and muscle blood flow. Subjects who developed eye-related pain showed elevated orbicularis oculi muscle blood flow during computer work. So there you have it. Eye pain during computer use is not your imagination. It is real and we know the muscle responsible.

So how do you fight computer vision syndrome? Generally, specially designed computer or digital lifestyle eyewear can greatly reduce the eye strain and visual fatigue related symptoms of computer vision syndrome and even the neck pain that comes with it. Certain designs can even combat the dry eye that comes from reduced blinking when using the digital devices. Digital lenses like Essilor 360 can also greatly reduced visual fatigue and make your vision comfortable for long periods of time by using technology similar to that use in laser eye surgery to remove abberations that are present in traditional lenses .

Iif dry eye is a serious and prolonged problem, separate treatment for dry eye syndrome may be necessary.

Read our previous articles on computer vision syndrome:

• Three million Canadians suffer from computer vision syndrome

• How the ipad can wreck your vision and what to do about it

• How to get the edge in Diablo III

How to get the edge in Diablo 3

How can you get an edge playing Diablo 3?  Well, an optometrist may not be an expert gamer but we know what you can do to make gaming easier on your eyes.

One of the best things you can do is to wear Gunnar eye wear   or some other computer glasses which are specifically designed with gamers in mind.  Gunnar lenses are specially designed by optmetrists to make it easier to view computer screens by changing the frequency of light that comes from the screen so that it is easier for the eye to absorb.

Gunnars also have precise wrap that increases the humidity in front of your eyes.  That fights dry eye, which is a problem for gamers because you blink less when playing video games causing your tear film to evaporate faster and your eyes to dry out.  Vision Source Vancouver optometrists carry Gunnars and we let you try them on and view a computer screen.  You see the difference right way and its quite an improvement.

All of this adds up to less visual fatigue, healthier eyes and greater endurance and more hours of video game enjoyment. After all Gunnars are the official eye wear of the world series of gaming (or at least they used to be).  Incidentally, the visual discomfort video game players experience is called computer vision syndrome and is a medical problem that is on the rise.  Computer eye wear like Gunnars can fight computer vision syndrome and is more than just video game eye wear.  We tell our patients to think of it as eye wear for a digital lifestyle.  Use it with your computer, smart phone and tablet for more visual comfort and a better life.

Reading glasses are not just for people over 40 anymore

Reading glasses aren’t just for people over 40 anymore, reports a CBS affiliate in Chicago.

All our texting, ebook-reading, ipad use and other small screen viewing is messing with our vision.
Dr. Valerie Kattouf, chief of pediatric optometry at the Illinois Eye Institute, says more of her young patients need reading glasses.“I see it in school-age kids. I see it in older school-age kids – the teenagers – and I see it a lot in young adults of working age, you know, 20s and 30s,” Kattouf said.Kattouf says it is not just the fault of small cell phone screens and tablet computers. That on top of homework and reading – whether print or online – can lead to focus problems.
“The intensity of the near work without any kind of breaks or attention to what that does to you,” she said.She says young people have always had vision problems, but she thinks the increase in the amount of time they spend doing what she calls “close work” is leading to more problems with far-sightedness.Kattouf suggests limiting screen time and taking frequent breaks to look off in the distance in order to rest your eyes.
That's good advice.  An easy way  to remember is to think of the 20/20 rule: if you want to maintain your 20/20 vision, make sure that every twenty minutes, you take a break and look into the distance for at least 20 seconds. 

The impact of the digital revolution on our vision is becomming more prevalent as more people join the digital device generation and, not surprisingly, it is getting more attention in the media.  The New York Times had an article on Computer Vision Syndrome recently.  To learn more about Computer Vision Syndrom and visual fatigue and what you can do about it, click here.

Technology-related vision problems are fast becomming a major segment of the vision disorders that the Vision Source Vancouver optometrists deal with every day.  We have solutions to prevent the problem, to fight visual fatigue and discomfort and to make vision the best that it can be when interacting with digital screens.

And a note on reading glasses.  If you read my previous post, you will note that if you need reading glasses, it's better to stay away from the ready-made readers that you get from a drug store or book store because, more likely than not, they don't measure up to optical standards.

How the ipad can wreck your vision and what to do about it.

Computer vision syndrome is a vision problem that is growing with the proliferation of computer work, smart phones and tablets.  There is an app for everything these days and that means that more and more of our time is spent looking at ipad, iphone and computer screens for long periods. 

Patients in our clinic have experienced benefits from using custom designed computer lenses combined with the right prescription to substantially reduce computer vision syndrome and visual fatigue.

Computer vision lenses are designed for a 21st century digital lifestyle. Some even have a precise wrap designed to increase the humidity directly in front of your eyes to combat dry eye, a problem because people reading a screen blink less than normal. You can even get lenses with a special tint that changes the frequency of computer screen light, making it easier for your eye to absorb and making the screen easier to read.

The issue is gaining attention. Even the New York Times has a new article on computer lenses. Here is an excerpt:

If I moved my computer monitor close enough to see the screen clearly, it was nearly in my lap. If I left the monitor where it should be, I had to lean forward awkwardly. During my annual eye exam, I told my optometrist about my workstation discomfort and the strain it was causing my eyes, neck and back.

Eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision, dry eyes, and neck and shoulder pain are common complaints of someone experiencing computer vision syndrome, according to the American Optometric Association.

If you optimize your work environment for comfort and still have problems, the solution may be another pair of glasses, the association says. Normally, I’d be skeptical of a trade association suggesting that I buy more of their wares. But studies have found that a majority of people who work on computers or hand-held devices experience some vision problems, the association said.

With 31 percent of those over 18 saying that, on average, they now spend at least five hours a day on a computer, tablet or smartphone, it appears that these symptoms will only become more common.

Many of those people need special-purpose glasses with lenses adjusted to bring the computer screen sharply into focus. The problem with computer work is twofold, said Gary Heiting, an optometrist and associate editor of AllAboutVision.com, a consumer information site.

“During computer use,” Dr. Heiting said, “our eyes not only have to stay focused but also have to stay properly converged for long periods of time,” referring to the ability to move both eyes inward. The glasses people use for driving or the ones they use for reading books often have the wrong focal point for computer use or are ill-suited for computer use.

This convergence fatigue can cause eyestrain and blurred vision, just as focusing fatigue does, he added. What is more, computer workers blink much less frequently than they would during a face-to-face conversation, and that leads to dry eyes at work.

Computer vision syndrome originated with office work, but the popularity of mobile devices is now straining the eyes in a different way, according to Dr. James E. Sheedy, director of the Vision Performance Institute at Pacific University in Oregon.

Here is some more information on computer vision syndrome.

Three million Canadians suffer from computer vision syndrome

Some 3 million Canadian workers suffer from Computer Vision Syndrome, a condition caused by prolonged computer use.  In addition to that, a recent survey by the American Optometric Association found that 68% of young adults report a technology related vision problem. 

And as our nation has moved from a manufacturing society to an information society, Computer Vision Syndrome has become a workplace concern.  While prolonged computer use will not damage vision, it can make you uncomfortable and decrease productivity.

Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) is caused by the eyes constantly focusing and refocusing on the characters on a computer screen. These characters don’t have the contrast or well-defined edges like printed words and the eyes’ focus cannot remain fixed. Symptoms of CVS include headaches, loss of focus, burning or tired eyes, blurred vision and neck or shoulder pain.

CVS can be partially alleviated by changes in the ergonomics of the work area.  Proper lighting and monitor placement can go a long way toward reducing CVS, as can giving your eyes frequent "breaks” from the computer. But the underlying cause of CVS – the ability of the eyes to focus on the computer screen – may only be remedied by specialized computer glasses.

A comprehensive eye exam, including questions about a person’s computer use habits is the first step. If we determine that vision correction for computer use is required, we can prescribe computer lenses that are designed to improve your vision in the 18” – 28” range, the optimal distance between your eyes and the computer monitor.

The right eye-wear can greatly improve your visual comfort.  One option that is popular with the patients at our clinic is Gunnar eye-wear by Zeiss Vision, one of the oldest optical companies in the world (founded in Germany in the nineteenth century). 

Gunnar lenses have a particular wrap designed to increase the humidity immediately in front of your eyes in order to combat the dry eye that comes from the fact people tend to blink less when they use the computer.

Gunnar lenses also change the frequency of the light that comes from computer and smart-phone screens to make it easier for your eye to absorb thus making vision more comfortable and making the screen easier to read.  The improvement in vision and visual comfort is immediate and dramatic and can be experienced just by trying on a pair at our clinic.