A 30-year-old woman has developed vision impairment due to long-term use of smartphones. In a series of tweets, a Hyderabad-based doctor shared a case study of his patient and explained how the ‘smartphone vision syndrome’ (SVS) is caused and how she corrected her vision.
“There were moments when she could not see anything for several seconds. This occurred mostly at nights when she got up to use washroom. She was evaluated by an eye specialist and detailed evaluation was found to be normal. She was referred to rule out neurological causes,” Dr Sudhir Kumar said in a tweet.
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He further said that his patient, named Manju, started developing symptoms of impaired vision after she quit her job as a beautician to take care of her child. She was claimed to have been using smartphones for several hours, including over two hours at night keeping lights inside her room switched off.
Instead of prescribing medicines, the doctor counselled Majnu and suggested minimising the use of smartphones. “Manju was anxious as she feared something sinister with her brain nerves but was finally determined to take corrective action. She said- ‘instead of minimizing, I will stop looking at smartphone screen, unless absolutely necessary. In any case, my phone use is recreational’,” he said.
Manju’s vision was restored after a month of corrective action including her momentary loss of vision at night. Kumar further suggested to take a 20-second break after every 20-minute use of digital devices. “Take 20-second break, every 20 min, to look at something 20 feet away, while using a digital screen (20-20-20 rule),” he said.
