Monday, July 17, 2000

By Marion Jones FOX NEWS

NEW YORK - If your eyes are burning right now, imagine how your child's will feel at your age.

Children who spend intensive time staring at the screen early on and spend hours at the computer every day risk developing computer-related vision problems, some eye specialists believe.

"The most common problem is difficulty seeing distance after prolonged time on the computer," says Dr. Sanford Cohen, a Silver Spring, Md., optometrist who treats children.

"Children also experience burning and sore eyes, as well as generalized eye strain," he notes. These problems usually disappear when the child takes time away from the computer, but some eye specialists believe they could speed up the development of permanent vision problems in children.

Computer-related eye problems are by now familiar to workplace health experts. "Visual problems such as eyestrain and irritation are among the most commonly reported complaints by [computer screen] operators," states a 1997 Occupational Safety and Health Administration pamphlet on safely working at video display terminals (computer monitors).

But the focus on children is new. "We are so concerned about ergonomics in adults that we have neglected to realize children are just as much at risk," says Dr. Pia Hoenig, chief of the Binocular Vision Clinic at the University of California-Berkeley.

Hoenig has been studying computer-related vision problems in children for five years and has found the contemporary computer workstation presents unique challenges to children's eyes.

"No workstation is really created or set up for a child," Hoenig explains. "Because children are smaller, they tend to sit closer to the screen. The closer you sit to a screen, the more you challenge your focusing mechanism."

Reading computer text can cause eye strain because it is made of pixels, not solid ink. Pixels are dots of color with solid centers and fuzzy edges. Eye cells are set up to focus on edges of letters, so the eyes are constantly shifting forward and backward when looking at the blurred edges of computer texts. The "yo-yo" motion quickly tires out the eye muscles, Cohen explains.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that computers create any permanent harm to the eyes of adults or children, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

"Computer vision syndrome is not a disease, and children are less likely to have problems because the overall health of their eyes is better than that of adults," says Dr. Michael Redmond, a Pensacola, Fla., ophthalmologist and AAO spokesperson.

But Hoenig has observed enduring effects. "I am seeing a trend that children who used to be getting into reading glasses in fourth grade are getting into them a couple of grades earlier," she says.

Hoenig is now conducting formal controlled studies of children and computer vision difficulties, and hopes to have a completed study in six to eight months.

Vision Detection Device

To detect possible problems, experts recommend children get thorough eye exams.

While many optometrists are unaware of the specific problems that computers cause for children, a few are using a specialized instrument designed to detect these problems. The PRIO tester, a square device that looks like the front of a small computer monitor, simulates text made of pixels.

The doctor attaches the PRIO tester to a long metal rod on the pharometer, the instrument with interchangeable lenses that patients ordinarily look through to be tested. The patient looks through the different lenses, and the doctor holds the PRIO at different distances from the patient while the patient reads the text the way he or she would read a printed-out eye test.

At the same time, the doctor watches the place where the person's eyes are focusing with a special device that shines into the eyes called a retinoscope. This way, the doctor can determine whether the eyes are continually refocusing and fatiguing.

"It's ideal to use a device [like PRIO] that produces pixels, because the eye's focusing mechanism doesn't focus on it the way that it would focus on black ink."

If the doctor detects difficulties, he or she can prescribe special computer use lenses that counteract this problem, Cohen says.

But not all eye experts agree these lenses are necessary. "If children become uncomfortable in some way using the computer, they are not going to continue," Redmond says.

Eye Prevention

Cohen and Hoenig also recommend the children sit no closer than 18 inches to the screen, and that parents encourage them to take frequent breaks from the computer.

These changes do not have to be dramatic, Cohen says. "Instead of the children working for an hour without a break," he says, "they can work 30 minutes with two breaks."

If parents are reluctant to enforce limits on computer time, Cohen is firm. I say, "Look, do this now to keep them from needing to wear glasses for distance later."

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