Eye health during the COVID-19 pandemic

Dr. Purva Joshi

As we move on with the new-normal code, our lives have been experiencing many changes since covid pandemic. One important component is work from home and increased screen exposure. Nowadays due to lockdown (and gradual phase wise unlock) and era of digitalization, most of the transactions, business deals, exchange of thoughts, etc. are occurring online. Moreover, the education and learning process is also through an online system. In such cases as the time span of screen exposure increases, the possibility of compromised eye health also increases, affecting all age groups; children, adults as well as the senior citizens.

This has increased proneness to a condition called “computer vision syndrome”. Prolonged working on screen results in infrequent eye blinking. Frequent blinking is required for proper spread of tear film and lack of this invariably leads to dry eyes causing grittiness, redness, watering and eye strain. Working at a particular distance for long causes eye muscle fatigue which may lead to headache, blurring of vision.

Next, bad body posture leads to musculoskeletal issues like neck pain, back pain, inflammation of body tissues and lethargy.

Some tips to prevent these symptoms are –

1. Adequate lighting while working on screen (to avoid eye stress and cause minimal glare)
2. Good posture of body – with5-6 inchdistance from central screen, screen set at an angle of 40-45 degrees, where applicable a combination of table chair set at adequate height with comfortable cushion.
3. Following20-20-20 rulewhile working (20 sec break every 20 minutes and focusing at a distance of 20 feet).
4. Frequent eye washes- extra care to be taken by first washing and sanitizing hands before eye washing.
5. Use of anti- glare glasses
6. Healthy and balanced diet -including anti-oxidants, vitamin A, Bcomplex, vitamin C.
7. Adequate and sound sleep of 6-8 hours.
8. Avoid smoking and avoid alcohol consumption.

 Another concern is about online learning sessions. As the schools, colleges, coaching centres are closed, they are conducting online classes. For preserving the eye health of the students, apart from above mentioned tips, following should be kept in mind-

1. Indulge them in gardening or other small household chores to keep them active
2. Monitoring their screen time.

To sum up, along with the aforementioned tips, here are few more practices to keep overall good eye health-

1. Avoid rubbing eyes-instead use tear drops or moisturizing drops to avoid itching or irritation.
2. Use of anti- glare glasses
3. Avoid touching eyes – especially in case of infection, conjunctivitis, eye discharge- as it may spread infection further.
4. If using contact lenses, consider switching to glasses for a while as it will reduce irritation and minimal touching of eyes will be there.

Thus in these challenging tough times we need to keep good overall health including eye health

The writer is a Public Health Specialist and Drug Safety Physician at IQVIA, Thane.