Protective Eyewear Can Fend off Injuries in Young Athletes
Doctors warn of spike in sports-related eye injuries with start of training season
Newswise — While using summer
drawing with an end as well as the academic year fever currently brewing, pediatric eye specialists with the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center along with the Wilmer Eye Institute
are sounding the alarm on a preventable yet only too common occurrence — sports-related eye injuries.
August is Children’s Eye Safety and health Month, and pediatricians
should counsel parents, coaches and young athletes concerning the perils associated with eye injuries and urge those to consider protective goggles, for high-risk sports
including fencing, boxing, soccer, basketball, softball, lacrosse and baseball.
“As training season begins, so when children resume practice, emergency rooms nationwide may see
an influx of eye injuries from sports — yet most if these injuries are highly preventable by putting on protective goggles,” says pediatric ophthalmologist Michael X. Repka,
M.D., of the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute and deputy director of ophthalmology at Hopkins Children’s Center.
Worn consistently, safety eyewear can prevent nine outside of
10 injuries, the pros say. Mild injuries, for example lid bruises and corneal abrasions, usually cause no lasting damage, but serious eye traumas might have lasting effects.
E.g., high-impact injuries may cause internal bleeding or fracture the bone around the eye, which might require surgery.
“Eye injuries while very young can have serious and
life-long consequences with the young athlete which are beyond missing a sport or two and can sometimes cause permanent damage to our eyes and decrease in vision,” Repka says.
Eye injuries will be the leading reason for blindness in children in the usa with a lot of eye injuries in school-age children occurring during sports using the National
Institutes of Health. Some 100,000 sports eye injuries occur every year, with children making up nearly 1 / 2 the instances, research shows. Also, children account for a third
of most eye traumas requiring hospitalization good Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Protective eyewear includes safety glasses, goggles, shields and eye guards.
Regular prescription glasses don't offer adequate protection for almost all sports, experts say, and all sorts of sports eyewear really should be sports-specific. For youngsters
who wear prescription glasses, safety goggles may be custom-designed to match the prescription, Repka says.
The Hopkins experts recommend the subsequent steps to help you
minimize the chance for serious damage to our eyes:
? Keep your child wears protective eyewear during practice and games.
? Consult an ophthalmologist or an optometrist to
view which forms of protective glasses should be fitted to a specific sport.
? Make a point your child has regular eye screenings and exams, if the pharmacist has problems.
Seek immediate medical help if your child has any of the following:
? Cuts or punctures on the eye
? Redness, itching or irritation with the eyes
? Discharge or excessive
tearing in a or both eyes
? Swelling of the eye or perhaps the area around a persons vision
? Deep eye pain, pain behind the eyes and/or unexplained headaches
?
Floaters or flashes in the field of vision or partial decrease in vision, that is signs of possible detachment of the retina
Some caution: Never rub the affected eye and try and
remove any splinters or objects stuck inside eye because accomplishing this may cause more damage. Navigate to the emergency room instead, the specialists advise.
Founded in
1912 because the children's hospital at Johns Hopkins, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center offers just about the most comprehensive pediatric medical programs in the united
states, treating more than 90,000 children each year. Hopkins Children’s is consistently ranked one of the top children's hospitals within the nation. Hopkins Children’s is
Maryland's largest children’s hospital along with the only state-designated Trauma Service and Burn Unit for pediatric patients. It's recognized Centers of Excellence in a
large number of pediatric subspecialties, including allergy, cardiology, cystic fibrosis, gastroenterology, nephrology, neurology, neurosurgery, oncology, pulmonary, and
transplant. To read more, kindly visit www.hopkinschildrens.org