Effects of suppression of blinking on quality of vision in borderline cases of evaporative dry eye.
OBJECTIVE
To study the effects of suppression of blinking on quality of vision in borderline cases of evaporative dry eye.


METHODS
Ocular higher-order aberrations (HOAs) were measured sequentially for 30 seconds in 10 eyes with a short tear film breakup time (TBUT; 3.0 +/- 0.6 seconds) without ocular surface staining or tear deficiency. During measurements, the subjects suppressed blinking to every 10 seconds, which is more than double the TBUT. The aberration data were analyzed for comalike and spherical-like aberrations and total HOAs to the sixth-order Zernike polynomials.


RESULTS
Sequential changes in total HOAs in subjects with a short TBUT showed a sawtooth pattern with a marked upward curve that increased after blinking. From 5 to 9 seconds after blinking, the total HOAs were significantly higher than immediately after blinking (P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Serial HOA measurements showed that optical quality might deteriorate in subjects with a short TBUT by suppressed blinking, such as when gazing at a video display terminal, even with sufficient tear volume.
Koh
Shizuka
S
Department of Ophthalmology, Osaka University Medical School, Suita, Japan.
Maeda
Naoyuki
N
Hori
Yuichi
Y
Inoue
Tomoyuki
T
Watanabe
Hitoshi
H
Hirohara
Yoko
Y
Mihashi
Toshifumi
T
Fujikado
Takashi
T
Tano
Yasuo
Y
D000328:Adult; D001767:Blinking / Q000502:physiology*; D015352:Dry Eye Syndromes / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D015590:Fluorophotometry; D006801:Humans; D013666:Tears / Q000502:physiology*; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*