According to the Contact Lens In Pediatrics (CLIP) study, the first clinical investigation to compare children under 12 years of age and teens using silicone hydrogel contact lenses, researchers report that children as young as eight years old who need refractive error correction are as capable as teenagers at wearing and caring for soft contact lenses.

Doctors will typically evaluate a child’s maturity and level of parental support in deciding whether a child is ready for contact lenses.  “Contact lenses often provide a more convenient mode of vision correction for the young and as long as the child is mature to put in the lens and adhere to strict hygiene standands, there should be no reason why any child cannot wear contact lenses” states Dr Ashraf, medical director of the Atlanta Vision Institute.  He adds that, “proper hygiene includes washing hands prior to insertion or removal of the lenses, no swimming with the contacts in, and no sleeping with the contacts in the eye.”

Overexposure to the sun can wreak havoc on your eyes. Sun damage can cause or has been implicated in conditions such as photokeratitis (sunburn to the cornea), pterygium (tissue growth on the whites of eyes that can block vision), and skin cancer on the eyelids, and has been implicated in the development of cataracts and possibly macular degeneration as well.

Chronic exposure to sunlight causes skin damage as well as accelerating damage to ocular tissues states Dr Ashraf of the Atlanta Vision Institute. He states, “the simplest solution to harmful UV rays is to wear the proper sunglasses”.  Any protective eyewear should have side shield protection or wrap around the eye so light cannot enter the eye from side reflections.

Proper UV eye protection should include the following:

- Check the UV protection level. UV and sunglass protection is desirable year round, and should also be used during daylight hours, even through cloudiness and haze. Your sunglasses should provide more than 95 percent UV protection.

- Check the lens tint. Most people believe that darker sunglasses provide better protection against the sun but that is not true. The lens tint should block 80 percent of transmissible light, but no more than 90 percent to 92 percent of light; neutral gray, amber, brown or green are good colors to choose from.

- Make sure they block all of the light. Choose sunglasses that wrap all the way around the temples, and/or wear a hat with a three-inch brim that can block the sunlight from overhead.

- Wear shades over your contact lenses. People who wear contact lenses that offer UV protection should still wear sunglasses. Sunglasses are helpful for preventing the drying effect most contact lens wearers get, which is caused by warm wind.

- Buy shades for your children. For the greatest protection, consider providing UV-protected sunglasses for your children, and remember that the eyes of very small infants should always be shaded from direct exposure to the sun.

A British study finds that the condition known as floppy eyelid syndrome (FES) is strongly associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), implying that when doctors see FES in a patient, they should also look for OSA, and vice-versa. The study, published in April’s Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, describes factors shared by OSA and FES and specific findings on how FES develops that will help doctors better diagnose and treat patients.

People with OSA face several health challenges - at worst, they are at risk of dying of oxygen deprivation when breathing slows or stops during sleep. OSA can contribute to or be aggravated by high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and other systemic problems. Researchers led by Daniel G. Ezra, MD, MRCOphth, of Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, England, found the strong OSA-FES association in a case-controlled study of 102 patients tracked between 1995 and 2008; 102 matched controls were also tracked.

“About one-third (32 of 102) FES patients in our study also had OSA,” Dr. Ezra said. “The significant association of the two disorders was evident even when we considered and controlled for patients’ body-mass index (BMI, an indicator of whether obesity was a factor). FES is often considered a disease of overweight, middle-aged men, but our study did not find a patient cluster based on age, gender or BMI,” he added.

People with FES have rubbery-textured upper eyelids that may easily flip up during sleep, exposing the “whites of the eyes,” which can lead to dry, irritated eyes and/or discharge. The central nervous system arousal may be impaired in OAS suffers, so they do not wake up as people normally do when breathing slows or stops, or when the eyelid is subjected to extreme stress. People with OSA often preferentially sleep on one side, which could result in intense, repeated pressure on the eyelid on that side of the face. A combination of these factors may contribute to or cause FES. The report notes that FES resolved in an OSA patient who was treated with a continuous positive airway pressure mask.

Also, the  study confirms earlier findings that FES is associated with keratoconus, in which the cornea thins out and becomes cone-shaped. Patients with FES often rub their eyes excessively, perhaps contributing to keratoconus. Ophthalmologists should recognize that visual problems in patients with FES may be due to keratoconus - rather than dry eye disease or other surface irritation - and treat them accordingly, the researchers say.