Protect Your Eyes from Sports-Related Eye Injuries: Sports Eye Safety Awareness Month 

With more than 25,000 people being treated for sports-related eye injuries every year, most of which are preventable, understanding sports-related eye injuries and how to protect your eyes and those of your loved ones is important.
 
This April, in honor of Sports Eye Safety Awareness Month, we’re taking a deep dive into sports-related eye injuries and how to prevent them.

The first step is to understand where sports-related eye injuries occur. Of course, we think of eye injuries occurring in physical sports such as basketball, baseball, football, and soccer. But sports-related eye injuries are not limited to those. Here is a list from PreventBlindness.org of the top 22 sports that lead to eye injuries amongst individuals of all ages, including adults, some of which may surprise you:

1. Basketball
2. Water and pool activities
3. Guns, including air, gas, spring, and BB
4. Baseball / softball
5. Football
6. Bicycles
7. Soccer
8. Health club (exercise / weight lifting)
9. Fishing
10. Table / air hockey
11. Racquet sports
12. Ball sports (unspecified)
13. Golf
14. All-terrain vehicles (4 wheels)
15. Sports and recreational activity (not elsewhere classified)
16. Winter sports
17. Volleyball
18. Playground equipment (not specified)
19. Scooters, skateboards, and go-carts
20. Swings or swing sets
21. Trampoline
22. Boxing and wrestling

 
With such a range of sports associated with eye-related injuries, including many more beyond these top 22, we need to understand the dangers and how they can be prevented.
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Eye Injuries

Eye injuries can occur during any activity, not just sports. Eye injuries can also occur during leisure activities such as yard work, cooking, cleaning, crafts, woodworking / construction, and fireworks or other explosives.
 
Eye injuries and damage can come from blunt trauma caused a poke, a strike, a punch, or a ball or piece of equipment to the eye, penetrating or piercing trauma caused by a broken piece of equipment or broken eye glasses, or harmful UV rays caused by sun exposure. Each of these types of eye damage represents potential irreversible vision loss and blindness and must be evaluated and treated by an ophthalmologist immediately.
 
In addition to blunt trauma, penetrating / piercing injuries, and UV damage, other eye injuries can occur during sports and other activities, including:

• Corneal abrasion: Scratch on the surface of the eye
• Traumatic iritis: Inflamation of the iris (colored part) of the eye
• Hyphema: Bleeding inside the front of the eye
• Angle recession: Damage to the eye’s drainage system

 
An ophthalmologist should be consulted after any eye trauma and evaluate all eye injuries to minimize the risk of permanent vision loss. 

Eye Protection & Injury Prevention

The best way to protect vision and eye health is through prevention. Ninety percent of sports-related eye injuries are preventable with proper protective eyewear.
 
Proper protective eyewear includes safety or sports glasses, goggles, shields, and eye guards made of polycarbonate material. Polycarbonate material is ultra strong, has 10-times the impact resistance than other plastics, and does not reduce vision. Further, it comes in prescription and non-prescription options. To ensure that protective eyewear offers the highest levels of protection, PreventBlindness.org recommends looking for the ASTM F803 approved label.
 
The type of protective eyewear should be appropriate or designed specifically for the particular sport or activity being performed. If wearing prescription glasses, contact lenses, or sunglasses, appropriate safety goggles should be worn over them. While sunglasses may protect against UV damage if they have sufficient UV blocking capabilities, neither sunglasses nor prescription glasses or contact lenses protect eyes from trauma and injury. In fact, as these materials can shatter easily and puncture or pierce the eye or surrounding tissue if broken during impact.
 
Most eye protection is elective, meaning that many sports, leagues, and other organizations do not require the use of protective eyewear. It is up to individuals and parents of children to assess the risk of eye injury and decide to use appropriate protective eyewear.
 
It is also important to note that the eyes of those participating in sports and activities are not the only ones at risk. Coaches, fans, onlookers, assistants, and other people in the area can sustain eye injuries from flying balls, broken bats, and other flying debris or dangerous objects in the area. Being aware of the potential risks and wearing appropriate eye protection, including UV blocking sunglasses, can be important to supporters eye safety and health as well.  
 
If you have questions about appropriate protective eyewear and UV blocking sunglasses, please contact our office to discuss.
 
While we all hope that eye injuries can be prevented with education and the use of appropriate protective eyewear, accidents happen. Should you or a loved one suffer an eye injury or trauma to the eye area, please contact us immediately. Eye trauma constitutes a vision emergency, and we are here to assist you in such times. Our answering service can contact our eye doctor on call if a vision-threatening emergency should happen after hours and on weekends.
 
For additional resources on sports eye safety, visit PreventBlindness.org's Sports Eye Safety page.
 
Sports eye safety is critical to our community. If you know someone who may benefit from this information such as sports organizers / organizations, coaches, and school officials, please feel free to forward a link to this blog post or share a printed copy.