The NHS funds a basic level eye test for children which is a great starting point to find out if any of our specialized children’s services could benefit your child. We will make your child’s eye test fun and interesting, we have lots of special tests just for kids. We measure their vision, check focusing, that the eyes are healthy, the eye muscles work properly and the colour and 3D vision is normal for age.
Every child should have regular eye tests, stable, clear & comfortable vision is essential for your child to reach their academic potential.
It is essential that during the early years of childhood any eye problems are detected and all children should regularly visit the optician. Difficulties with reading can be linked to visual stress which we can investigate further on a 1 hour Enhanced Appointment. (See below)
Children spend more time indoors now than ever before and many hours looking at screens and devices. This has been shown to be associated with a huge increase in myopia. It is predicated that over half of the UK population will be myopic by 2025.
Myopia Management & why it’s so important
Myopia causes blurred vision for far distance objects, but as it increases, the blur can start to be noticed even at arm’s length or closer. It is also known as ‘short’ or near-sightedness.
Myopia typically starts developing before age 10, and then progresses or worsens every few months in children and teenagers. In children, the eyes should grow steadily until the teenage years, then stabilize. In myopia the deterioration of vision is caused by continued eye growth through the teenage years and even into early adulthood. This is called myopia progression.
The prevalence of myopia is rapidly increasing due to lifestyle changes and is predicted to affect over half of the UK population by 2050.
Myopia has traditionally been corrected by spectacles (glasses) or contact lenses, which fix the focus of the eye to create clear vision while they are worn, but do not fix the myopia. This simple correction option – single vision glasses or contact lenses – have been found to offer no protection against myopia progression.
Myopia is a condition that also increases the risk of retinal detachment and diseases like glaucoma and myopic macular degeneration. The higher the Myopia, the higher the risk of serious eye problems later in life, corrective laser surgery doesn’t reduce these risks.
Park Lane Opticians is proud to be a supporter of myopiafocus.org and the change.org/myopiafocus campaign.
Better sight for life
- Myopia control treatments slow down the progression, or worsening, of childhood myopia. These include special types of glasses lenses, soft contact lenses & ortho-k contact lenses. Every Dioptre makes a difference.
- Myopia control has short-term benefits of better vision between eye exams and long-term benefits of protecting eye health
- Considering your child or teenager’s time spent outdoors and screen time are also important factors in managing myopia
A child may start one treatment and change to another as they grow and their lifestyle changes. The options can be discussed in further detail at an appointment with one of our Optometrists. Our Myopia Management plans range from £36 to £49 per month and include all necessary follow up visits.
Night Lenses gently reshape the curvature of the eye overnight. The lenses are placed on the eye before bedtime and removed in the morning. Our practice Owner Sarah has been an Orthokeratologist since 2013 and we have many success stories. We can fit these to stabilize myopia progression in children. Great for active sporty children and also loved by many adult wearers.
MiSight® 1 day soft contact lenses are specifically designed for myopia control to slow the progression of myopia in children aged 8-12 at the initiation of treatment. This is the more expensive option due to the high quantity of lenses needed.
MiYOSMART use revolutionary technology to enable clear vision in the same way as conventional glasses, but with an additional ring shaped treatment zone to slow down myopia progression.
Enhanced Vision Assessments
Some children have poor eye muscle coordination and control. The enhanced vision assessment investigates the strength, coordination and accuracy of accommodation and convergence, muscle balance, fusional reserves (challenging and measuring the eye muscles reserve strength) visual stress and eye dominance.
If your child has poor eye muscle control, we may recommend HTS (Home Vision Therapy) treatment, a combination of computer based eye exercises with progress checks. Orthoptic exercises are effective in treating and often curing convergence and accommodative problems which are both relatively common. This can sometimes reduce or eliminate the need for glasses in children. Your child would have to visit us for progress checks, usually for 2-3 months.
The HTS program takes a maximum of 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week we can also monitor your child’s progress online.
Enhanced Assessment inc retinal imaging, overlay and report – £120
Coloured Overlays and ReadEz tints
Visual stress (Irlen) syndrome is often associated with dyslexia.
The symptoms of Visual Stress syndrome are very similar to eye muscle underaction. Many studies have shown that children have less need for tints and overlays following vision therapy, an enhanced vision assessment should therefore always be done on children who may have visual stress or reading difficulties.
Visual Stress (Irlen) syndrome affects reading because words, letters and spaces may appear to move on the page and it may be difficult to concentrate. We have specially designed tests and may suggest your child uses a coloured overlay for a trial period. Tints in glasses work much better than overlays and we use a tint system called ReadEz, developed at City University London.
Childrens Glasses
We stock a range of quality childrens frames including Wolf, Charles Stone and Stepper to give a choice of glasses whatever your child’s face shape, we guarantee a great fit. Basic lenses may be funded by an NHS voucher, for children we may recommend lenses which are stronger, lightweight and fully UV protective.
The NHS does not fund Myopia Management, ReadEz tints or Enhanced assessments.
