Jul 2, 2009 11:48 pm US/Pacific
Computer Glasses May Help Reduce Eye Strain
(CBS 5)
Do you spend all day staring at your computer or glued to your smart phones only to come away with blurred vision, headaches or a stiff neck? You are not alone: More than four billion mobile devices, and a countless number of computers, are now in use around the world.
With all that constant staring at smaller and smaller screens, a high tech eye problem is staring right back.
Optometrist Dr. Dennis Fong with UC Berkeley's School of Optometry has seen an uptick in a condition called Computer Vision Syndrome or CVS for short. The symptoms: headaches, tired eyes, blurred vision, double vision, and/or loss of eye focus.
According to the California Optometric Association, a survey of optometrists nationwide indicated that each year, 10 million patient visits resulted from problems occurring with the use of high-tech devices.
Dr. Fong explained to CBS 5 HealthWatch how human eyes are not designed to look up close at anything for eight hours a day. In addition, high tech devices emit light, and that causes eye strain.
Secondly, the letters on display screens don't have the same definition as the letters that you would find on a piece of paper. That forces the eye to have an involuntary tendency to lose focus and then need to flex back again to regain focus, according to the California Optometric Association.
Dr. Fong said all these factors end up making your eyes tire very quickly. And if you wear glasses, you can develop a pain in the neck.
Dr. Fong explained how bifocals and progressive lenses only have a very small area manufactured into them, through which a person can view a display screen in focus.
Not only that, Dr. Fong explains that small area is placed lower than a person's line of sight. That forces a person who is wearing glasses to tilt his or her head backwards in order to see through that small "sweet" spot, and that can cause chronic neck pain.
But there's a solution, according to Dr. Fong, and that is to invest in a pair of computer glasses. With computer glasses, the lenses are different. Dr. Fong says you have an even larger area through which to see a display screen clearly, and you no longer have to tilt your head backwards.
Antonia Frankhuijzen now uses computer glasses and she says they've made a huge difference. Not only that, she adds, but the frames now available are so fashionable, you can be chic, pain free as well as high tech.
And, finally, if you use computers or any high tech device, the California Optometric Association says to remember the three B's: Blink, Breath and Break.
Blink more: We blink at only one third the rate we normally do when staring at these devices. So force yourself to blink more often when using a computer. This will keep your eyes moist.
Breathe more deeply: That will keep oxygen flowing throughout your body, and to the eyes.
And Break: use the 20/20/20 rule which is every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
Computer lenses cost about the same as progressive lenses.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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