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Updated January 23, 2020 20:22:47

One in five middle-aged Australians are finding it difficult to read road signs while driving, according to a new survey of the nation's visual health.

The 2020 Vision Index Report survey of 1,000 people, commissioned by Optometry Australia and released today, reveals 19 per cent of respondents aged 35 to 54 admit they struggle with signs behind the wheel.

One in three people surveyed had also never heard of myopia despite a global epidemic that experts say will leave half the world myopic by 2050.

Peter van Wijngaarden, a principal investigator for the Centre for Eye Research Australia, said the findings on driver behaviour had "significant safety implications".

"The vast majority of that sort of difficulty is easily corrected with glasses or an update to existing glasses, so it's something I'd strongly encourage people, that if they are feeling that they're having trouble seeing road signs, that that's a bit of a red flag for going and seeking out an eye check," he said.

Optometrist Sophie Koh from Optometry Australia said the survey's findings backed a view that many people were "in denial" about the state of their vision, or simply avoided conditions that made it most difficult, such as driving at night.

Indeed, 22 per cent of all people surveyed indicated they squinted at night "to see better while driving", while 15 per cent of people admitted to squinting behind the wheel during the day.

Ms Koh said everyone needed regular eye tests, regardless of symptoms.

Two-thirds of parents in the survey said they had taken their children to an optometrist, yet vision experts said it was critical for all children to have their eyes tested before starting school.

"Before they start school we recommend that they get an eye exam with or without symptoms," Ms Koh said.

"A lot of children, for example, are happy with the way they see and don't know they have a vision problem because that's the way they've always seen.

"We know a lot of eye problems are undetected. But most eye diseases 75 to 90 per cent are preventable."

But they need to be caught early. Ms Koh said waiting for symptoms to arrive was leaving it too late.

Associate Professor van Wijngaarden said having children's eyes checked was particularly critical.

"Often it's hard to notice when kids aren't seeing as well as they should and we know there's a critical period in childhood where correcting vision impairment, the need for glasses for instance, is really important for development of the sense of vision," he said.

"We are actually born with quite poor vision and it's visual experience that leads to the development of our eyes and our brain together.

"Good eye checks in childhood are really important to make sure your child's going to develop the best possible vision."

Ms Koh said the rapid rise of myopia made eye testing even more critical for children.

"Ninety to 95 per cent of kids in countries like South Korea and Singapore are now myopic, and it's a direct relation to more indoor activity versus outdoor and sedentary behaviour," she said.

"The message of two hours outside play per day is most important.

"It doesn't matter if you want to read a lot and be on screens, but you need to have a protective balance, which is outdoor [time]."

Associate Professor van Wijngaarden said the myopia epidemic still was not fully understood.

"In part it's environmental risk and in part it's genetic risk," he said.

"There's certainly an evidence base building for the need for outdoor activity, some sunlight exposure and reducing your work-screen time, extended periods of close focusing work."

Australians were also ignorant of the UV-induced eye disease known as pterygium, with three-quarters of survey respondents saying they had never heard of the problem.

Yet one in 100 Australians are affected, and Queensland has the highest prevalence of the condition in the world.

The National Eye Health Survey in 2016 estimated more than 450,000 Australians had some form of vision impairment, and that figure was expected to grow rapidly with the nation's ageing population.

Topics:health-policy,occupational-health-and-safety,travel-health-and-safety,womens-health,mens-health,driver-education,education,road-transport,road,doctors-and-medical-professionals,australia,brisbane-4000,qld

First posted January 23, 2020 06:44:46

Read the original here:
Driver eyesight and myopia awareness key concerns from national vision survey - ABC News

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