Covid consequences on youth eyecare
Author : Artham Agarwal
Delhi Public School R.K.Puram (New Delhi, India)
Abstract The advent of the Digital world has revolutionized the world. The millennials are born with this boon but it has also brought an adverse challenge along with it. The excessive use of digital screens has impacted the eyes of one and all, especially children. This has been accelerated by the arrival of 4G wherein videos, and video calling, online classes have increased the eye exposure manifolds to excessive usage from a very young age. During the Covid Pandemic, the online classes, online entertainment, video games instead of physical games have increased the digital exposure to children eye sight by manifolds and have impacted the eyes of the children to alarming proportions. In this backdrop, Child Eye Care needs special attention to contain the quality of their vision during their young formative days and improve the overall quality of life of the millenials who if not contained could face extremely high eye power leading to near blindness during their older age.
The topic of the study was to see the condition of the eyes of young children after Covid in the age group of 10 to 14 years by conducting eye camps under the supervision of Ophthalmologists and Optometrists.
The study found that 25% of the total students did not know that they had eye power of more than -1.00. Some had as high as -3.00 Most of them had cylindrical eye power as high as -3.00 pointing again towards possible use of digital devices excessively during Covid. They needed spectacles immediately to correct their vision, stop further deterioration and immediately improve their quality of life. In India, 25% of the students who could be impacted in the age group of 10 to 14 years translate into 20 million students which clearly emphasize the urgent need to address this disorder almost like a pandemic.
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