What Is Short Sightedness?
Learn how your eye functions
In order to see clearly, light rays have to be wholly concentrated on the optic retina at the back of the eye. The shafts of light that reflect from an image run through the clear cornea (covering of the eye) and then are refracted as the travel through the eye’s internal lens, that manoeuvres the fine tuning of the focussing.
The optical image is imprinted by the light sensitive retina commuting the light energy in to electical impulses, which then walk along nerves to the region at the back of the brain that processes vision. This occipital part of the cerebral cortex tells us what we are seeing
Short-sightedness (myopia)
With near sighted or myopic people, the eye ball is too long, in relation to the centering strength of the cornea and lens unit. Therefore the rays of light that come from the distant object converge in front of the retina as the corneal/lens focussing unit is too powerful.
This means that achieving a clear image of an object in the distance becomes increasingly challenging. Focussing on objects near by is OK. Hence kids mightn’t learn as well as they can’t read what is written on the white board very easily.
In general, children and teenagers are the most commonly affected group of patients. You may find that the whole family have to wear glasses as there is a genetic tendency. However, these parents are usually well aware of the tell tale signs and Hence tend to bring their children to the aid of opticians relatively quickly.
Spectacles are needed to set right the focussing by creating another element to the cornea/lens unit, which distorts the visual image to allow it to focus on the retina more readily. It can be quite expensive to buy spectacles all the time. However, it is possible to buy your spectacles on line now. Myopia can also be managed by wearing contact lenses or even undergoing laser surgery to correct the abnormal visual unit
