Sport and play: what dangers for children's eyes

Pubblicato il

Wednesday, 10 January 2018

Argomento

Oculistica Pediatrica e Vizi di Refrazione

The most common causes and tips for preventing paediatric eye injuries.

Paediatric eye injuries, which may be related to sports or other recreational activities, remain a frequent occurrence in recent decades (1990-2012), and especially injuries due to the use of toy guns were found to have increased by as much as 168.8%.
Paediatric eye injuries, which very often could be prevented, can occur in a very short time span, but are often the cause of injuries with a serious impact on the child's entire life course.
To identify the most common causes, a group of American researchers from the Nationwide Children's Hospital of Columbus (Ohio) carried out a retrospective study based on data collected from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. A total of 441,800 paediatric patients, aged under 17 years, treated in emergency rooms between 1990 and 2012 for eye injuries were included in the study. Injuries were more frequent in males, who made up two-thirds of the patients treated, and occurred predominantly in the 10-14 and 15-17 age group.
The vast majority of eye injuries were treatable and resulted in rapid discharge from the emergency room in 94.6% of cases.
The most frequent causes of eye injuries were found to be corneal abrasions (27.1%), conjunctivitis (10%) and foreign bodies in the eye (8.5%). Certain sports such as basketball (15.9%), baseball and softball (15.2%) and the use of toy guns (10.6%) can also be identified as posing higher risks. In particular, it should be noted that approximately 48.5% of the eye injuries, which required hospitalisation, were caused by toy-guns.
Therefore, intervention in the area of prevention continues to be important and must be based on careful parental supervision, especially when children use toy weapons. Measures would also be appropriate to reconcile the practice of sports and recreational activities, which are essential for the child's socialisation, with appropriate measures to reduce the risk of trauma, such as the mandatory use of appropriate eye protection.