Use of glasses during children's sporting activities

Wearing glasses and playing sports is not a problem, but in the case of children it takes some care. The ophthalmologist Ágata Mota gives some advice to parents.

You should ask your child's ophthalmologist if there is a need to wear glasses for sports, because small refractive errors, i.e. low graduations may not justify the use of glasses during sport. However, if there is a higher graduation, then glasses should be prescribed and should be specific to the sport.

Ordinary glasses, so-called normal glasses, are not suitable for sporting activities as they can break if they are traumatised in any way. Therefore, it is necessary to prescribe specific glasses which have their own ergonomics and lenses made of more resistant materials which are unbreakable. In general, frames for children must be flexible and resistant and the lenses must be unbreakable.

This is because children are generally very physically active, even if they do not play any sport. Depending on the eye chart, the type of sport and the age of the child, whether we are talking about an older child or a teenager, contact lenses may also be an option.

In the next programme we talk about myopia in children.

With the support of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology.