Method for preventing myopia progression through identification and correction of optical aberrations

Abstract

A method for at least one of preventing myopia and retarding the progression of myopia is provided. The method includes measuring optical aberrations in a human eye and correcting the optical aberrations. Measuring optical aberrations may include measuring wavefront aberrations of parallel light rays entering the eye.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention pertains to measuring optical aberrations in the human eye and, more particularly, to preventing myopia and retarding the progression of myopia by correcting the aberrations.BACKGROUND ART[0002]Myopia (or near-sightedness) has become the most pervasive visual disorder in the world. About twenty-five percent of people in industrialized countries in the Western world, and more than fifty percent of people in industrialized Asian countries require optical correction for myopia. With increasing educational demands, the prevalence of myopia is increasing steadily. Extensive reading by children and adolescents appears to cause progressive myopia. Since increasing educational demands have increased the prevalence of myopia, optical correction, such as eyeglasses, contact lenses, and refractive surgery for myopia is a major health care expense.[0003]Myopia is due primarily to an elongation of the posterior pole of the eye during the school age year...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017]The step of correcting may also include providing high illumination levels to reduce the pupil of the eye.

Problems solved by technology

Extensive reading by children and adolescents appears to cause progressive myopia.

Since increasing educational demands have increased the prevalence of myopia, optical correction, such as eyeglasses, contact lenses, and refractive surgery for myopia is a major health care expense.

Structures in this region of the eye tend to be stretched during development, and their integrity is compromised.

This causes greater risk to the effects of ocular trauma, diabetes, macular degeneration, and other diseases.

This means that myopia is also a major contributor to irreversible blindness.

This means that eyeglasses, contact lenses and refractive surgery are not treating the basic disorder, but are merely counteracting the effects of ocular elongation.

Each of these treatments has its own problems, is expensive, and in no way reduces the likelihood that the myopic person will contract one of the blinding diseases which are secondary to myopia later in life.

Some eyes have an aberration that creates a difference in optical power between one meridional orientation and another.

However, parts of that image may be in front of or behind the retina due to the refractive properties of the eye's aberrations.

Thus, most of the image in a “perfectly” corrected eye may be significantly out of focus due to these aberrations.

Animal studies have shown conclusively that blurring the visual world by scattering an image through the use of eyelid closure or smoked or sandblasted eyeglass lenses leads to myopia.

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