Preteens Can Abrasion Contacts Responsibly
Kids age-old 8-12 like bendable acquaintance lenses -- and use them as well as adolescence do, a Vistakon-funded abstraction shows.
Optometrists are afraid to appoint acquaintance lenses to accouchement younger than 12, addendum Ohio State University's Jeffrey J. Walline, OD, PhD. They worry that applicable kids with contacts takes too continued -- and that the youngsters will have agitation acquirements how to use the lenses correctly.
Early after-effects from an advancing abstraction advance that optometrists and parents shouldn't worry. Walline and University of Houston optometrist Amber Gaume Giannoni, OD, appear the allegation at this week's affair of the American Academy of Optometry.
"We begin that adolescent accouchement are just as amenable with their lenses [as teens]," Walline says in a account release.
The advisers advised added than 100 accouchement and teenagers who were given a three-month accumulation of disposable bendable acquaintance lenses and charwoman solution. The lenses acclimated in the abstraction have to be taken out at night and befuddled abroad after two weeks.
Walline and colleagues begin that applicable accouchement for acquaintance lenses was nearly as simple as applicable teens. It took about 15 account best to advise the younger accouchement the appropriate way to admit and abolish the lenses. But the kids showed they accepted the instructions actual well.
After a ages of cutting contacts, kids were added annoyed with them than they were with their eyeglasses. Parents appear that the 8- to 12-year-olds wore their lenses about 10.5 hours a day -- hardly beneath than the 11.5 hours-a-day abrasion appear by teens.
"The better boosts were in agreement of achievement with their correction and aswell with accord in activities," Walline says. "Children and teens appear that it was abundant easier to appoint in sports, dancing, and other activities while cutting acquaintance lenses."
Surprisingly, vanity didn't assume to be an issue. Kids' animosity about their own actualization -- and about their contact-wearing peers' actualization -- didn't change if they exchanged their glasses for acquaintance lenses.
The abstraction was adjourned by Vistakon, a analysis of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc. Walline is a paid adviser for Vistakon. Johnson & Johnson is a WebMD sponsor.