Bausch + Lomb recently issued a release providing tips for parents on protecting their children's eyes from injury while participating in sports. In a nutshell:
Trauma to the eye from getting hit by a tennis ball, baseball or basketball, as well as jabs and pokes from other athletes, can lead to long-term vision problems including bleeding in the eye, cataract, or in some cases, blindness. The solution is to make wearing protective eyewear as common as wearing a helmet – ideally, protective eyewear with contoured frames that wrap around a child’s face to protect the eye from all directions.
Regular glasses and sunglasses do NOT provide adequate protection. Lenses can break and cause shards of debris to fly into a child’s eye. Plastic and metal frames can bend or break, causing damage to a child’s face and eyes. The lenses of adequate protective eyewear should be both impact and scratch resistant.
The damage that sun exposure does to eyes is cumulative, meaning the danger to our eyes grows as we spend more and more time in the sun. Prolonged exposure to UV rays has been linked to the onset of a variety of eye issues, including adult onset cataracts and macular degeneration.
Sunglasses should block both UVA and UVB rays. An eye doctor or optometrist can test adequacy.
Click here for the full release.
