Finalised Literature Review 

By: Lim Ing, Li Ying, Berwyn & Ler How

Introduction:

Myopia, or more commonly know as being shortsighted has been a problem for many years, affecting a large portion of the human population. The cause of myopia is usually the over usage of the eye, thus straining it. Other factors include genetic factors and environmental factors which will contribute to the development of myopia
.

Methods: 

Eye-Drops, such as atropine, pirenzipine and cyclogyl. They relax the focussing muscle of the eye. It is also said that some of these eye-drops prevent the eye from growing longer. A few studies have shown that such eye-drops do work, but then they have side-effects such as blurred vision, glare, allergy, and the risk of developing glaucoma. Myopia returns rapidly once the drops have stopped.  

Prevention And Cure

Common cures are to wear spectacles and contact lenses which match the degree of your eyes. More methods but risky treatments are Lens Implant Surgery, Orthokeratology lenses, a permanent but risky one is called ‘lasik surgery’.

Contact Lenses: Ordinary hard (Rigid Gas-Permeable) contact lenses have been used, and there is anecdotal evidence that they work. However, clinical trials have been unable to corroborate this finding. The lenses tend to cause eye irritation, especially in dusty environments.

Orthokeratology lenses: (A special type of contact lenses) alter the shape of the cornea (corneal flattening, as in Lasik). These lenses are worn by the child when they sleep, and are removed the next day. The child will be able to see without glasses or lenses but the cornea very quickly regains its shape. There have been several cases of corneal ulcers because of these lenses. Whether these lenses can reduce the rate of progression of myopia has not been proven.

Optical Undercorrection: Some practitioners believe that wearing glasses that are undercorrected for the myopia will slow down the progress of the myopia. Again no convincing evidence is available to support this but a recent study of children wearing monovision glasses (i.e. with one lens undercorrected) showed that the eye wearing the undercorrected lens did not progress as rapidly as the eye wearing full correction.

Outdoor Activity: A couple of recent studies have shown that children who participate in more outdoor activity have less myopia.

Nutritional support in the form of Vitamin A, C , E, Omega-3 and Lutein should be good for the eyes.

Lowering Intraocular Pressure: There are some who think that the increase in axial length of the myopic eye is due to increased intraocular pressure. The raised pressure is said to be due to pressure from the eye muscles to converge the eyes and the stooping posture of the head when reading. It is also said that lying down to read increases the eye pressure. There is no convincing evidence to prove all these. Studies done to reduce the IOP in myopic children have not shown any effect on myopia progression.

Data Collection:

According to the website, they had clinical tests done on each myopic progression reduction method to see if they were or were not reliable. 

Conclusion:

There is a sum of available treatment for myopia, but most of them are temporary or may hold a risk. This shows that as modern science advance more treatments are available but more safer and quicker methods must be discovered.

Combined Literature Review Mindmap

Literature Review by Ler How

Introduction

Myopia, or more commonly know as being shortsighted has been a problem for many years, affecting a large portion of the human population. The cause of myopia is usually the over usage of the eye, thus straining it. Other factors include genetic factors and environmental factors which will contribute to the development of myopia

Methods



Relaxing the eyes will help to relax the eyes and not strain it as much. Usage of spectacles will also help to improved recovery from myopia. The lenses of these spectacles with zero power in front of the myopic eyes will lead to a full refractive correction of myopia accelerated progression will be achieved. Lasik is another option to cure myopia, by reshaping the eye’s cornea in order to improve eye sight.



Conclusion



Many of such methods are only temporary solutions, with no proper cure. The best way cure cure myopia is to prevent it. These solutions might be effective but will lead to loss of eye sight and might also be permanent.



Data Collection



The data collection method is not mentioned


Source: 
http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=BX2r1F-GQREC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Myopia+prevention&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DH0GUaLrM4jZrQfvqYDIBw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Myopia%20prevention&f=false

Literature Review by Berwyn

Literature Review

Introduction

Short-sightedness (myopia) is a problem of vision that causes distant objects to appear blurred, while close objects can still be seen clearly.

This is because light rays are being focused in front of the retina (the inside of the back of the eye), rather than directly on the retina.

At least 5 million people in the UK are short-sighted, and about 200,000 of them have high-degree myopia.

Myopia is caused by the eye being too long from front to back, or the cornea (the front of the eye) being too steeply curved. 

Prevention And Cure

Common cures are to wear spectacles and contact lenses which match the degree of your eyes.More methods but risky treatments are Lens Implant Surgery,Orthokeratology lenses,a permanent but risky one is called ‘lasik surgery’.

Conclusion
There is a sum of available treatment for myopia,but most of them are temporary or may hold a risk.This shows that as modern science advance more treatments are available but
more safer and quicker methods must be discovered.

Data Collection
The owner of the website owns his/her own clinic,the results could be taken from patients,online surveys and medical studies.

Sources:
http://www.webmd.boots.com/eye-health/myopia-introduction

Literature Review on Myopia by Lim Ing

                          Literature Review on Myopia - Reducing Myopia Progression

                                                         Lim Ing       (03)      S203 21/2/13

Introduction: 
For many decades, efforts have been made to reduce the progression of myopia. Up to now, there has not been very convincing evidence that anything works because myopia progression studies are very difficult to carry out and they take a long time to complete. Because a genetic factor is involved, the answer may lie in genetic therapy. So far, the following methods have been tried. Some of them have been proven to work in one or two clinical trials, but more trials are needed to verify these results.

Methods: 

Eye-Drops, such as atropine, pirenzipine and cyclogyl. They relax the focussing muscle of the eye. It is also said that some of these eye-drops prevent the eye from growing longer. A few studies have shown that such eye-drops do work, but then they have side-effects such as blurred vision, glare, allergy, and the risk of developing glaucoma. Myopia returns rapidly once the drops have stopped.

Contact Lenses: 
Ordinary hard (Rigid Gas-Permeable) contact lenses have been used, and there is anecdotal evidence that they work. However, clinical trials have been unable to corroborate this finding. The lenses tend to cause eye irritation, especially in dusty environments.

Orthokeratology lenses 
(A special type of contact lenses) alter the shape of the cornea (corneal flattening, as in Lasik). These lenses are worn by the child when they sleep, and are removed the next day. The child will be able to see without glasses or lenses but the cornea very quickly regains its shape. There have been several cases of corneal ulcers because of these lenses. Whether these lenses can reduce the rate of progression of myopia has not been proven.

Optical Undercorrection: 
Some practitioners believe that wearing glasses that are undercorrected for the myopia will slow down the progress of the myopia. Again no convincing evidence is available to support this but a recent study of children wearing monovision glasses (i.e. with one lens undercorrected) showed that the eye wearing the undercorrected lens did not progess as rapidly as the eye wearing full correction.

Neurovision: 
This method is training the brain to see better even though the degree of myopia has not been reduced. One study showed that neurovision reduced the progression of myopia as well. However, more studies are needed, to verify this. 

Outdoor Activity:
A couple of recent studies have shown that children who participate in more outdoor activity have less myopia.

Nutritional support in the form of Vitamin A, C , E, Omega-3 and Lutein should be good for the eyes.

Lowering Intraocular Pressure:
There are some who think that the increase in axial length of the myopic eye is due to increased intraocular pressure. The raised pressure is said to be due to pressure from the eye muscles to converge the eyes and the stooping posture of the head when reading. It is also said that lying down to read increases the eye pressure. There is no convincing evidence to prove all these. Studies done to reduce the IOP in myopic children have not shown any effect on myopia progression.

Conclusion:
Many of the myopic progression reduction methods are not clinically proven or tested yet. Some of them can even harm and make the situation of the eye worse. This shows that the technology now can help reduce myopic progression but still need further testing and improvement. 

Data Collection: 
According to the website, they had clinical tests done on each myopic progression reduction method to see if they were or were not reliable. 

References:
Raffles Medical Group:http://rafflesmedicalgroup.com.sg/health-articles/health-topics/myopia-reducing-myopia-progression.aspx

Literature Review by Li Ying

INTRODUCTION: The epidemics of myopia in countries such as Singapore and Japan are due solely to changes in lifestyle, they say, and similar levels could soon be seen in many western countries as lifestyles there continue to change.

DATA COLLECTION: Information was obtained qualitatively by searching Medline for citations of articles in English using the Keyword "Myopia" in addition to current literature review.

RESULT: Myopia can be classified into two groups, low to moderate degree of myopia (refered to as simple myopia-0.5 to -6.0 dioptres) and high or pathological myopia (greater than 6.0 dioptres). Simple myopia can be corrected with spectacles or contact lenses whereas high myopia may be complicated by potentially blinding conditions such as vitreous and macular degeneration and retinal detachment.

CONCLUSION: Recent advances in the management of myopia have made it possible to restore vision to a reasonable degree. 

Gantt Chart