Acquired myopia in the context of the theory of adaptation and the results of its primary prevention in elementary school by optical kinesiotherapy

Purpose. To analyze the acquired myopia (AM) development features from the perspective of the adaptation theory and to evaluate the effectiveness of its primary prevention in elementary school children using the optical kinesiotherapy (OKT) method with Zenica optical simulators sets (Zenica LLC, international patent number
WO 95/31743).

Material and methods. Acquired myopia can be considered as the result of passive adaptation of the visual system (VS) in case its operation is inadequate in near vision, according to the theory of adaptation. Therefore, the main goal of myopia preventive measures is to increase the visual system’s adaptive capabilities to adverse visual work conditions to the adequate level. 48 schoolchildren (96 eyes) with emmetropic refraction were observed during two academic years, starting from the first grade. There were 23 children in the main group who underwent 5 courses of OKT during the observation period. Preventive treatment was not carried out for children in the comparison group (25 children).

Results. There was no change in refraction in the main group by the end of the two-year observation period, while myopic refraction increased in 8 (8%) eyes in the comparison group. Positive-relative accommodation (PRA) increased by an average of 3.5±0.36 D (p<0.001) in the main group as a result of treatment, while in the comparison group its values improved on average by only 1.2±0.48 D (p<0.001) as a result of the natural PRA development. The stability of visual perception (SVP) to hyperopic retinal defocus (HRD) increased by an average of 38%, and width of the divergence of the graph’s curves increased average of 4.0 D as a result of the visual system adaptive resource correction using optical simulators in the main group. The SVP to HRD increased only by an average of 10%, and the width of the divergence of the graph’s curves increased by 0.75 D in schoolchildren of the comparison group over the same period, due natural development of the visual system.

Conclusion. Correction of the adaptive resources of visual system in elementary school students by OKT helps increase adaptive resources to an adequate level during the educational process, which helps prevent the risks of myopia.

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