Children as young as 8 can handle the responsibility of wearing contact lenses, U.S. researchers reported, opposing conventional wisdom of optometrists that children under 12 not use lenses.

A three-month study of 10 nearsighted children showed nine of them handled daily disposable contact lenses with little trouble, according to researchers writing in the Journal of Optometry and Vision Science.

"Many parents don't realize that their 8-year-old child can handle the responsibility of contact lenses, so they don't think to ask," said Jeffrey Walline, an optometry researcher at Ohio State University.

"But the children in our study wore contacts without relying on their parents to put them in and take them out."

The researchers said they used daily disposable lenses to relieve the children of the need to clean and disinfect lenses.

Walline said optometrists don't recommend contact lenses for children younger than 12 because they believe they are not responsible enough to care for them. But studies have shown 8-year-olds can put them in and out without help from parents.

"We've seen similar results from larger studies of children this age who have used other types of contact lenses," Walline said in a statement.

"Many children are told that they can't wear contacts until they turn 12 or 13," he added. "But we already know that younger myopic children can wear rigid gas-permeable or soft contact lenses."

Myopia, or shortsightedness, usually begins around age 8.

Reference Source 89
July 29, 2004

For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".