HYDERABAD: Refractive errors like myopia are a leading cause of avoidable blindness in the world. Early detection and management of myopia are becoming more and more important as the prevalence of myopia increases in children, adolescents and young adults.
One out of two individuals could be affected by myopia by the year 2050, according to the well-known Brien Holden Vision Institute. Those affected have a greater risk of developing severe eye disease. That’s why early and accurate measurement and a reliable follow-up of myopia are crucial. The greatest changes in myopia occur from age 6 to 16 when the eye can start growing out of focus, resulting in a bigger axial length of the eye and myopia. Once the eye has grown longer, there is no method of shrinking the eye again. The treatment of myopia reduces eye growth, or in the best case, stops it. This demonstrates how important it is to regularly test children already at an early age.
Myopia can be treated with spectacles in children and low-dose atropine eye drops. However, in older children, contact lenses can also be used to correct myopia. Lifestyle modifications like maintaining visual hygiene and spending a few hours of outdoor activity in daylight are also advisable.
“To help with early detection and management of myopia, Sharat Maxivision Eye Hospital has introduced the Myopia Master, a device that measures all the important and intrinsic features of the eye like the length and curvature of the eye and the refractive error. The device has an in-built normative database that compares it with that acquired from your child’s eye and gives a rough prediction of how myopia may progress in the future. The Myopia Master combines the most important parameters for myopia management in a myopia analysis software,” says Dr Ch Annapoorna, Sr Refractive Surgeon D.O, MS Ophthalmology, Sharat MaxiVision Eye Hospital.
The Myopia Master makes myopia management easy with a seven-step process that includes measurement, data analysis, questionnaire, patient education, treatment options, take-home report, and follow-up. Regular follow-up examinations are crucial for myopia management, and the Myopia Master software enables you to locate the latest measurement in a trend analysis and visualise the success of the treatment.