A Clinical Trial of Two Devices in Altering the Facilitation of Accommodation and Progression of Myopia

Abstract

It has been suspected that accommodative hysteresis and the lag of accommodation caused by intensive near work can drive the development of myopia. Accommodation training has been found to be effective in improving accommodative facility and accommodative lag, and has been reported by some to be a useful means to control myopia progression. This study investigates whether two accommodation training devices requiring minimal clinical supervision and allowing home use to lower training cost can significantly increase accommodative facility and reduce myopia progression in myopic school children.

This study is a double-blind randomized clinical trial with two treatment groups, each using one of the two devices, and one control group. Primary school children with myopia progression were randomly assigned into the three groups, each with an equal number of male and female subjects. An optometrist assigned the subjects into the three groups and provided two weeks of training to subjects in the treatment groups. A second optometrist carried out the pre-, post-, and three follow-up examinations at 3-month intervals for all subjects. Measurements collected and analyzed included accommodative facility, axial length, and best corrected visual acuity.

Findings show that short-term use of the two devices does not result in a significant improvement in measurements of accommodative facility, and does not significantly reduce the progression of myopia.