The Hindu : National : Glaucoma threat from computer screens

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

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National

Glaucoma threat from computer screens

By Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE, NOV. 16. First, it was repetitive stress injury — the inherent health risk in tapping computer keyboards for hours together. Now, researchers say they see a link between staring intently at a computer screen for about nine hours a day and glaucoma, a progressive eye disease.

In a paper slated to appear in the December issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, published by the British Medical Association, a team of researchers at the Toho University School of Medicine, Tokyo, have reported a study on over 10,000 Japanese workers, which seems to suggest that people who already have a visual defect and also spend long hours every day in front of computer screens may be in threat of contracting glaucoma. The team, led by Masayuki Tatemichi, found that over 5.1 per cent of the sample (522 workers) had visual abnormalities of some kind and of these 32 per cent or 165 had suspected glaucoma. The workers on whom tests were conducted were mostly men and the average age was 43.

The finding, which is sweeping across technology websites and resources on the Internet,is considered important because the correlation between extended staring at computer screens and eye disease had earlier been discounted by ophthalmologists. Now, the Toho research seems to suggest the opposite, particularly if the subjects are already shortsighted.

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