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CHILDREN.
HELP YOUR LITTLE ONES REDISCOVER THEIR VISION
Millicans Opticians offers free eye screenings to children under the age of 16 through the NHS. We have a large selection of modern spectacle frames available for free with an NHS voucher. Our children's eyewear collection is as attractive as it is functional, with plastic lenses to make them safe and light.
TREAT THEM YOUNG
What are the chances that your child will need glasses? Children, like everyone else, require glasses to correct long, short, or astigmatism (when the eye is an irregular shape). This can be a single eye or a pair of eyes. If the problem is minor, the child's eyes may be able to adapt and adjust to it, and they may not require glasses at all. If your child has a significant amount of long sight, short sight, or astigmatism, or if the doctor's examination reveals that the eyes are afflicted, your child may need glasses. During the session, the optician will go over the reasons why your child might need glasses in greater detail.
LONG-SIGHTED
Long-sightedness occurs when the eye fails to properly focus light on the retina. This results in a hazy image on the retina (the layer at the back of the eye). If your child is farsighted, their vision will be blurry at all distances, but especially close up. Long-sighted children will frequently try to see more clearly by concentrating the lens within the eye more. Children with only a slight long-sightedness may be able to accomplish this with ease. Others may be unable to focus well enough to see clearly. Eye strain or a squint can result from the extra focusing (a turn in the eye). In this instance, your child will require glasses to assist them in focusing their vision.
SHORT-SIGHTED
Short-sightedness occurs when light fails to focus properly on the retina in the rear of the eye, instead focusing too far in front of it. The image on the retina becomes blurred as a result of this. For distant things, your child's vision will be clouded if they are short-sighted. Many short-sighted children can clearly see close objects. Short-sightedness glasses alter light focusing so that it is clearly focused on the retina.
ASTIGMATISM
Astigmatism is a condition in which the front of the eye is not perfectly spherical. The form of a normal-sighted eye is similar to that of a football, but the shape of an astigmatic eye is similar to that of a rugby ball. Astigmatism causes an eye's shape to be irregular, making it unable to focus all of the light evenly in one spot. The retina becomes blurred as a result of this. Your child's vision will be affected for both close and far objects if they have astigmatism. Astigmatism can occur alone or in combination with long or short vision. Astigmatism glasses alter the focussing of light so that it is uniformly concentrated in one spot on the retina.
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MYOPIA MANAGEMENT
Although an outright cure for short sightedness has not been discovered, your optician can now offer a number of treatments that may be able to slow the progression of myopia.
If your child has myopia (nearsightedness), you're undoubtedly wondering if there is a solution — or at the very least, if there is something that can be done to delay the progression of myopia so that your child doesn't have to wear stronger glasses year after year.
Eye care professionals and researchers have been questioning the same issue for years. And there's good news: a number of recent studies suggest that it may be possible to delay the progression of myopia during childhood and adolescence.
Why should you be interested in myopia control? Because slowing the progression of myopia may keep your child from developing high levels of short sightedness that require thick, corrective glasses and have been associated with serious eye problems later in life, such as early cataracts or even a detached retina.
Currently, three types of treatment are showing promise for controlling myopia:
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Orthokeratology ("ortho-k")
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Multifocal contact lenses
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Multifocal spectacles
Here's a summary of each of these treatments and of recent myopia control research:
ORTHOKERATOLOGY
Orthokeratology is the use of specially constructed gas permeable contact lenses worn at night to temporarily cure short-sightedness and other vision disorders, eliminating the need for glasses or contact lenses during the day.
However, some optometrists utilise "ortho-k" glasses to help youngsters control their myopia progression. When compared to children who wear glasses or regular contact lenses during the peak years for myopia progression, evidence suggests that short-sighted youngsters who undergo multiple years of orthokeratology may end up with less myopia as adults.
MULTIFOCAL CONTACT LENSES
Multifocal contacts are lenses with varying powers in different zones to correct presbyopia, short-sightedness, and long-sightedness (with or without astigmatism).
Traditional or modified multifocal soft contact lenses are also efficient instruments for myopia correction, according to researchers and opticians.
In 2010, results from a six-month trial of experimental myopia control contact lenses used by Chinese schoolchildren was presented by researchers from Australia, China, and the United States. The contacts had a unique dual-focus multifocal construction, with full corrective power in the centre and decreased power in the periphery.
MULTIFOCAL SPECTACLES
Multifocal glasses have also been examined in children for myopia treatment, although the results have been less striking than multifocal contacts.
Wearing multifocal spectacles does not give a significant reduction in progressive myopia for most children, according to a number of studies published between 2000 and 2011.
The Correction of Myopia Evaluation Trial (COMET), published in 2003, demonstrated that progressive glasses lenses slowed myopia progression in children by a tiny but statistically significant amount during the first year when compared to standard single vision lenses. However, in the next two years of the trial, the effect was no longer significant.
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