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  • Correcting Hyperopia Improves Accommodative Function

    By Lynda Seminara
    Selected By: Prem S. Subramanian, MD, PhD
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    Journal Highlights

    Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
    2021;62(4):6

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    Guidelines for optical correction of low to moderate hyperopia in children do not exist, in part because the value of providing correction in this population has not been demonstrated. Although some children can exert adequate accommodation to focus for near work, doing so may be uncomfortable. Ntodie et al. looked at the effect of refractive correction on the accommodative responses in children during sustained near tasks and found that correcting low and moderate hyperopia substan­tially relieved the compensatory efforts.

    The authors recruited 134 children between 5 and 10 years of age with varying levels of hyperopia from three settings in the United Kingdom: a local primary school, a community optomet­ric practice, and a university optometry clinic. Of these children, 63 met the inclusion criteria; their spherical equiv­alent refraction ranged from +1 D to +4.38 D in the less hyperopic eye.

    The authors recorded binocular accommodation measures while the children were engaged in reading small print on a Kindle device and watching an animated movie on an LCD screen. The children performed each task for a 15-minute period, both before correc­tion of hyperopia and one week after full correction. The displayed font and font size remained uniform for all read­ing work. Reading speed was assessed with and without correction. The effect of optical correction on accommoda­tive response was considered “positive” if the correction either improved accu­racy of the mean response when there was accommodative lag or reduced the mean response when the accommoda­tive lead was 0.50 D or greater.

    Of the 63 qualified enrollees, 62 completed the reading evaluation, and 61 completed the movie portion. After refractive correction, the accuracy of accommodative responses improved for the reading task (p = .001) and the movie task (p < .001). Reading speed also increased (p < .001).

    The effects of refractive correction in this study were independent of age or the degree of hyperopia. The authors recommend exploring the longer-term clinical and academic outcomes of hyperopia correction.

    The original article can be found here.