Effect of vision therapy on accommodation in myopic Chinese children

Introduction.we evaluated the effectiveness of office-based accommodative/vergence therapy (obavt) with home reinforcement to improve accommodative function in myopic children with poor accommodative response. methods. this was a prospective unmasked pilot study. 14 chinese myopic children aged 8 to 12 years with at least 1d of lag of accommodation were enrolled. all subjects received 12 weeks of 60-minute office-based accommodative/vergence therapy (obavt) with home reinforcement. primary outcome measure was the change in monocular lag of accommodation from baseline visit to 12-week visit measured by shinnipon open-field autorefractor. secondary outcome measures were the changes in accommodative amplitude and monocular accommodative facility. results. all participants completed the study. the lag of accommodation at baseline visit was 1.29 ± 0.21d and it was reduced to 0.84 ± 0.19d at 12-week visit.this difference (-0.46 ± 0.22d; 95% confidence interval: -0.33 to -0.58d) is statistically significant (p < 0.0001).obavt also increased the amplitude and facility by 3.66 ± 3.36d(p = 0.0013; 95% confidence interval: 1.72 to 5.60d) and 10.9 ± 4.8 cpm (p < 0.0001; 95% confidence interval: 8.1 to 13.6 cpm),respectively. conclusion. standardized 12 weeks of obavt with home reinforcement is able to significantly reduce monocular lag of accommodation and increase monocular accommodative amplitude and facility. a randomized clinical trial designed to investigate the effect of vision therapy on myopia progression is warranted. © 2016 martin ming-leung ma et al.