Children + eyewear = Children’s eyewear?!

24. February 2012|Optical Eyewear, Press Releases

According to the findings of an Allensbach study, about 15% of 2 to 15-year olds in Germany are already wearing eyewear and, in some countries, experts are already talk of 20 to 30% of children needing eyewear. Defective vision, positional defects (“squints”) or congenital eye diseases among children are being detected and better treated earlier and earlier, thanks to sight tests now possible when children are babies or toddlers – and, now as before, the most common “treatment” is to prescribe eyewear for children.

While slight long sightedness, which can be widespread when children are babies or toddlers, has often regulated itself when the eye has grown by the time they each school age, there is a series of defective vision problems and defects that have to be treated – often with eyewear.

“Defective vision problems, like long sightedness, short sightedness, astigmatism or anisometropia, can impair the normal development of stereo vision in both eyes in very early childhood and have to be treated immediately with appropriate eyewear. Undetected or inadequately corrected defective vision or strabismus often rapidly leads to irreversible amblyopia, which simply cannot be healed later with perfectly adjusted eyewear, contact lens correction or with an operation,” according to opthalmologist Dr. Markus Grasl.

Children’s eyewear: durable, comfortable and stylish
Kinder – as well as their parents – have specific requirements when it comes to their eyewear, both in terms of its material, size and weight, as well as manufacturing and comfort in wear.  “Children don’t like wearing poorly fitting or pressing eyewear,” states Dr. Grasl.
Experts list four crucial points as key criteria for “good children’s eyewear”: excellent fit, durability, exciting and sophisticated design and light weight. Children’s eyewear should be monitored around once a year and adjusted to the child’s growth: between 8 and 10 prescriptions for eyewear are usual between the ages of 5 and 13. If children opt for eyewear that grows with them and where the lenses can be replaced, these new prescriptions still mean new lenses, but not necessarily a new design every time.

The complete PR-Text is in the Silhouette Mediabox and available for download.