Glasses and Contacts

Most People Who Are Visually Impaired Could See Better If They Had the Proper Eyeglasses or Contact Lenses .  A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study has found that although 94 percent of Americans aged 12 and older have good vision, the remaining six percent, or 14 million, are visually impaired. Of these, more than 11 million have uncorrected visual impairment, such as nearsightedness. They need eyeglasses or Contact lenses to improve their vision. Teenagers, people with diabetes, and people who are economically disadvantaged have higher rates of visual impairment and can most benefit from corrective lenses. This study is published in the May 10, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Sunglasses

Be cool and wear your shades. Sunglasses are a great fashion accessory, but their most important job is to protect your eyes from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. When purchasing sunglasses, look for glasses that block out 99 to 100 percent of both UV-A and UV-B radiation.

Eye Protection

Each day, more than 2,000 U.S. workers receive medical treatment because of work-related eye injuries, with more than 800,000 eye injuries occurring annually. Workplace injury is a leading cause of eye trauma, vision loss, disability, and blindness. The resulting visual impairment can interfere with a person's ability to perform his or her job and carry out everyday activities.  Many eye injuries occur because workers are not wearing the right eye protection, it does not fit, or they are not wearing any protection at all. Flying fragments of metal, wood, concrete and other building materials, along with windblown dust and debris, splashes from chemicals and molten metal, hot sparks, optical radiation, and even the everyday nail, are common workplace eye hazards.  The use of the proper safety eyewear can greatly reduce the number of eye injuries.