HEALTH MATTERS
by: Nichole Dreyer

March Is National “Save Your Vision Month”

Regular eye exams can protect this important sense and maybe even your life

Sitting too close to the television won’t cause physical harm to your eyes, but it can put stress on them because picture details are fuzzier up close. This is the kind of information the American Optometric Association (A.O.A.) hopes to promote in March, during “National Save Your Vision Month.” Now in its 76th year, the campaign aims to raise awareness and target at-risk groups to remind them of the need for regular, comprehensive eye examinations to detect eye health problems, general health issues and vision difficulties.
“Vision is one of the most important senses we have,” says Susan Thomas, spokesperson for the A.O. A. “It especially plays a role in the independence we have in our later years, just for things like looking at a family photo or being able to read the clock.”
Factors such as race, gender, family history or age can cause a person to be at a higher risk for certain vision-impairing or vision-threatening disorders. For example, people with diabetes are almost twice as likely to develop glaucoma and cataracts, according to the AOA. Since more than 33 percent of people with diabetes don’t know they have it, according to the American Diabetes Association, an eye exam can be the only clue to detecting this potentially life-threatening disease. Other eye diseases, like glaucoma, may cause vision damage and eventually blindness without the person ever experiencing any symptoms.
“We’ve really come a long way in what we can do for people with vision loss,” Thomas says. “It’s such a precious gift. Anyone who suffers from vision loss can tell you how much they miss it.”
Save Your Vision Week was started by members of the A.O.A. in 1927. In 2001, the observance was expanded to include the entire month of March.
Taking care of these often overlooked body parts is important for everyone. Approximately 61 percent of Americans, or about 169 million, wear some form of vision correction and approximately 34 million people wear contact lenses, according to Thomas. For these people, taking care of their eyes is a daily habit. For others, regular eye exams can be one way to preserve this important sense.
So how far should you sit from the television? According to Thomas, a good viewing distance is about five times the width of the screen.

Just like speed or strength, vision is an important ingredient in how well you play your sport. Following are the skills athletes get from their eyes and tips from the American Optometric Association’s Web site on how to improve them:

Eye tracking: helps you maintain better balance and react to the situation more quickly.
To improve: Keep a book balanced on your head while following the flight of a ball or object that is thrown or hit. With the book on your head, you can also follow a softball as it rolls slowly around the inside of a Frisbee. After you master the softball, replace it with a faster moving baseball and then an even faster moving golf ball.
Dynamic visual acuity: being able to clearly see objects while you and/or the object are moving fast
To improve: Cut different size letters out of a magazine and stick them on a stereo turntable and try to identify them (from about arm’s length) at 33, 45 and 78 rpms. As it gets easier, use smaller letters.
Eye-hand-body coordination: how your hands, feet and hands, feet and body and muscles on other parts of the body respond to the information gathered through your eyes
To improve: Try jumping up and down on an old mattress while someone tosses a tennis ball to you from a variety of unpredictable angles. Catch it and toss it back. You can also paste a small target on a stereo turntable and try to accurately touch the target with a pointer at speeds of 33, 45 and 78 rpm. As you improve, make the target smaller.
Visual memory: the ability to process and remember a fast-moving, complex picture of people and things
To improve: Try paging through a magazine, glancing briefly at each visually complicated ad or illustration, then turning the page and reconstructing the images from memory. When this becomes easy, wait five seconds (then 10, etc.) before starting to reconstruct the image.
Visual reaction time: the speed with which your brain interprets and reacts to your opponent’s action
To improve: Stand with your back to a friend. Have that person carefully throw a baseball or football and yell “now.” When you hear the yell, turn around, find the ball and try to catch it. If you do this repeatedly, you can train your brain to interpret and react faster.
Focus flexibility: the ability to quickly change focus from an object far away to one near
To improve: Post a newspaper page on a wall at eye level about 15 feet away from you and hold a similar one in your hand about 15 inches from your face, at the same height but slightly to one side, so you can see both pages. Focus on a headline on the page on the wall and then try to quickly change to focus on the page near your face. Keep changing focus back and forth and you will improve your ability to change focus quickly. If you find it getting easier, move the paper in your hand closer to your face.
Depth perception: enables you to quickly and accurately judge the distance between yourself, the ball, your opponents, teammates, boundary lines and other objects.
To improve: Have a friend hold a straw about two feet in front of you, parallel to the ground. Practice inserting a toothpick into the hole.