Video game vision syndrome: A new clinical picture in children?

Purpose: To examine a possible relationship between exposure to video games/electronic screens and visual issues in children between 3 and 10 years of age. Methods: An observational, cross-sectional study of a population of children using video games was employed. All patients between 3 and 10 years of age were recruited at an outpatient unit accredited by the Italian Regional Health Service. Three hundred twenty children (159 boys and 161 girls; mean age = 6.9 ± 2 years) were observed. Ophthalmological examination included assessment of stereoscopic vision on Lang-Stereotests I and II (LANG-STEREOTEST AG, Küsnacht, Switzerland) and identifica¬tion of the dominant eye using the Dolman method. Fur-thermore, a questionnaire was used to record asthenopic symptoms and daily exposure to video games and elec-tronic screens. Two groups of children were examined according to the average amount of time spent playing video games daily: children who played video games for less than 30 minutes per day and not every day (control group) and children who played video games for 30 min¬utes or more every day (video game group). Both groups were then divided into two subgroups: children using other types of electronic screens (eg, televisions, com¬puters, tablets, and smartphones) for less than 3 hours daily (low electronic use subgroup) and children using other types of electronic screens for 3 hours or more per day (high electronic use subgroup). Results: Asthenopia (especially headache, eyelid tic, transient diplopia, and dizziness), absence of fine ste¬reopsis, and refractive errors were statistically more fre¬quent (mainly in the dominant eye) in children in the video game group. Conclusions: These symptoms were frequent and pe¬culiar in the video game group and might be part of a video game vision syndrome that has not been defined yet. It is important to recognize these signs as possible functional disorders to avoid erroneous diagnostic and therapeutic interventions