Long-term follow-up of school-age children on the effectiveness of myopia correction with contact lenses

• Published in: Journal of education, health and sport health and sport, 2021-03, Vol.11 (3), p.266-282
• Main Authors: Aleieva, Nataliia, Rykov, Sergiy, Shargorodska, Iryna, Petrovsky, Mykola
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: apa: anteroposterior axis; astigmatism; contact correction; myopia; nra: negative relative accommodation; phorometry; pra: positive relative accommodation; scl: soft contact lens; wtw: white-to-white
• ISSN: 2391-8306; 2391-8306
• DOI: 10.12775/JEHS.2021.11.03.026

Introduction and purpose. Early use of contact correction for congenital myopia and astigmatism in children and adolescents contributes to their social rehabilitation. The myopia correction with contact lenses provides sustainability of correction and absence of periods of blurred retinal images, which are experienced with the use of glasses. The purpose of the study was to determine, through long-term follow-up, the extent to which contact lens correction improves uncorrected and maximally corrected visual acuity in school-age children with myopia and myopic astigmatism. Material and methods. We followed up for three years 84 children (168 eyes) aged 6–16 years with myopic manifest refraction and astigmatism, who used soft silicone hydrogel aspherical contact lenses to correct ametropia. In the early and late follow-up, these patients were examined for visual acuity, objective and subjective clinical refraction, axial eye length, corneal thickness and diameter, keratometry, and phorometric data (accommodation, vergence, disparate areas, and oculomotor apparatus and their interaction). Results.In course of long-term monitoring of myopia and myopic astigmatism correction with contact lenses in school-age children, the statistically significant results were recorded after three years of observation, namely: an increase in uncorrected visual acuity by 47% (t=5.2; p