Vision Tests for Athletes: Are you into sports? It’s difficult to think of a sport in which good vision is NOT crucial.  All About Vision has a great resource to help you improve your sports vision, including this section on Sports Vision Tests and Training and Sports Vision Skills You Can Practice at Home. Try the memory test – I’m going to have to practice. I was only able to get myself down to 1:43.

Protecting Your Eyes While Tanning: Now that summer is on its way out, you might be considering visiting the tanning bed to retain your sunny glow. Of course, with the risk of skin cancer, that isn’t the greatest idea, but if you do decide to embrace the sunbed lamps anyway, make sure you wear goggles. As this article states, simply closing your eyes isn’t enough to avoid eye growths and vision damage. Be careful!

Video Games – Damaging to Your Eyes? Worried that your child’s constant playing of video games is damaging their eyes? New research may set your mind at ease.

New Glaucoma Tests: Here’s good news for those at risk for glaucoma. According to this article, up to 80% of people who have glaucoma don’t know it, even though the condition is the most common cause of preventable blindness. Luckily, new data is helping researchers to better diagnose and treat glaucoma sufferers.

Image Credit: blog.pennlive.com

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Happy Friday, Readers! I hope you have weekend plans that will make the most of this end-of-summer weather. Fall will be here before we know it!

As usual, here are some great eye care resources and news items to keep you informed and seeing clearly. Enjoy!

Women’s Health: The Healthy Women website is a great resource for all aspects of women’s health, with blogs and discussion on pretty much every topic you could imagine. Their section on eye health is particularly useful, with tips for keeping your eyes healthy and information on preventative health screenings for women.

Children and Vision: Ready to send your young one back to school? Besides being the month when children everywhere pick up pencils and notebooks and head back into the classroom, August is also Children’s Eye Health Month. According to this article, one in ten children is at risk for an undiagnosed eye problem, so make sure you take this opportunity to make sure your student’s eyes are ready to learn, too. After all, 80% of learning is processed through your child’s eyes.

Reading Glasses Guide: Have questions about reading glasses? Optometrist Andrew Gay has put together a helpful resource that answers many common questions, including those involving eye myths like “wearing glasses weakens your eyes.”  He also has some useful information on eye exercises and eye surgery.

Vision in the Future: Contacts with LED lights? Bionic eyes? Seeing with your tongue? Technology moves quickly, and scientists are more optimistic than ever about the possibilities to advance vision. Here’s a highlight of some possibilities for the future.

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Eye exams on your iPhone: EyeXam is a free app developed by two optometrists and allows you to measure your own visual acuity at near and far and also includes color vision plates and an eye dominance test. This isn’t exactly new news as the app came out in April, but it was news to me! And trust me – I just downloaded it and it’s pretty neat.

Local eye surgeon breaks new ground: An eye surgeon in Richmond created the region’s first partial corneal transplant. The surgery seems to have gone very well and recovery will take only two months, unlike a full corneal transplant where recovery can take one to two years.

Potential cure discovered for degenerative vision diseases: Neurobiologists have discovered a potential cure for degenerative vision diseases that lead to terminal blindness such as congenital macular degeneration. The new technology shows great promise for the partial restoration of vision for the blind.

UV absorbing contact lenses: 1•day Acuvue Trueye™ brand contact lenses became the fifth contact lenses in the Acuvue family of products to receive the Seal of Acceptance for Ultraviolet Absorbing Contact Lenses from the American Optometric Association’s Commission on Ophthalmic Standards.

Eye Care Manual: Here’s another great eye care resource – a one stop guide for all your eye-related problems, from basic eye care to retinal detachment. Check it out! Be sure to also check out this eye care directory of resources.

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Back to School: To the dismay of schoolchildren everywhere, it’s getting to be that time of year! In addition to buying pencils and notebooks for your budding scholars, make sure you add a yearly eye exam to the schedule. Vision is extremely important in the developmental years, and, as this article reports, problems with seeing clearly can lead to anything from a lack of interest in reading to headaches to ADHD symptoms.

Myths About Your Child’s Vision: On a similar note, in this article from Carolina Weekly, Dr. Laura Young explains some of the mistakes parents make in terms of their child’s vision. It’s a must-read for parents and grandparents!

Are Designer Sunglasses Worth It? Have you ever wondered whether that $500 pair of sunglasses is really better than the $15 ones? Wonder no more – this article reports that in many cases the sunglasses are made by the same company and provide the same protection for your eyes.

Like Fish? Here’s some good news – not only is fish healthy for your body, but it’s healthy for your eyes. New research shows that a diet of fish can prevent certain age-related eye diseases.

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Cosmetic Contact Lenses: You might know a teenage girl who is going gaga for pop singer Lady Gaga, as is a good portion of the world population. Just make sure she doesn’t take it too far: recent reports suggest that girls who are trying to emulate the singer’s wide-eyed look in her famous “Bad Romance” video might end up damaging their eyes. Any contacts that are not dispensed by a licensed eye health specialist are technically illegal, but Gaga’s “circle lenses” are even more dangerous because they cover more than just your pupil.

Carrots + Vision: Everybody knows eating carrots improves your vision, right? Wrong. Though a recent survey showed that 30% of eye care providers are asked about carrots at least once a week, the truth is that they cannot improve your vision. They do protect it, however, as do the other foods included in this article.

An Implantable Eye Telescope: There’s hope for those who suffer from age-related macular degeneration. The newly-approved “eye telescope” will magnify images to three times their size and then send the image to the healthy part of the retina. While it has a hefty price ($15,000), studies show 75% of patients experienced improved vision.

Are Yearly Eye Exams Really Necessary? It’s easy to skip out on that yearly eye exam when you don’t notice any problems with your vision. You don’t need glasses, so why bother seeing a doctor? However, the truth is that many serious health problems (including diabetes and brain tumors)  can show up in your eyes before they show any symptoms or signs elsewhere. Get more info here.

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