Being Proactive About Children’s Eye Health (Tips for Parents)

Many adult eye conditions, such as lazy eye (amblyopia), myopia, and UV eye damage, often start during childhood. That’s why it's critical for parents to take a proactive approach to their children’s eye health early on.

In this video you'll hear about the importance of addressing children’s eye health. We explain how early detection and regular eye exams can prevent long-term vision issues, while sharing insights on how our clinic is using innovative technology to support children's visual development.

Topics covered include:

The Importance of Early Eye Checks: Why childhood is the best time to detect and manage conditions that could affect vision in adulthood.

- Lazy Eye (Amblyopia): Recognizing the signs and understanding the treatment options available for this common childhood condition.

- Myopia & Hyperopia: The increasing prevalence of myopia (nearsightedness) and the often overlooked condition of hyperopia (farsightedness) in kids.

- Choosing Glasses & Sunglasses for Kids: How parents can select the right eyewear that offers protection and suits their children’s active lifestyles.

- UV Protection: The significance of UV protection for children's eyes and what to look for in high-quality sunglasses.

- Vision & Concussion: How head injuries can impact children’s vision and the steps that should be taken if visual issues arise following a concussion.

Disclaimer:
The content provided in this video is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have seen or heard in this video. The information shared is based on personal experience and general knowledge and should not be considered actionable health advice. Reliance on any information provided in this video is solely at your own risk.

TRANSCRIPT

0:03

Did you know that many of the eye conditions we deal with as adults are already baked in by the time we exit childhood?

0:12

Conditions like lazy eye, myopia, and UV eye damage

0:17

should be addressed at a young age, and therefore, as parents, we have a responsibility to be proactive

0:23

about the eye health and visual development of our kids. To talk about that, once again I'm chatting with Paul Graham,

0:31

a leading Gold Coast optometrist with over 30 years experience, who's the owner of Harmony Vision Care.

0:38

My name is Paul Sallaway, owner of Optics Digital Marketing, an agency that helps independent optometry owners to grow their practice.

0:46

So hello, Paul. Good to see you again. Morning. How are you? Very well, thanks. Very well.

0:51

So what's new with Harmony Vision since we last talked? I saw on your Facebook page that you've got some new technology

0:59

there in the clinic. I guess like any professional, when we get some new toys,

1:04

it's a bit like Christmas morning, isn't it? Unwrapping and getting familiar with the new stuff.

1:10

So, what's happening there in Harmony Vision Care? Yeah, look, it's a, probably an evolution rather than a revolution in equipment,

1:18

but one of those important steps. We opened the practice with the premise of having a dedicated vision therapy

1:24

space and also being able to do ortho-k. I'm actually sitting in our dedicated vision therapy space.

1:31

So that's one of the things that we ticked off 20 years ago, when we started the practice

1:36

and then having a corneal topographer was the other tick box, which is an instrument that gives us a very precise shape map of the front of your eye.

1:45

And so we've had one ever since we have a practice in order to be able to do the ortho-k and the complex contact lens fitting.

1:52

And we're a bit of a fan of the Medmont products that are Australian made. Very great ingenuity.

1:58

They're an international brand now. And then the latest addition of corneal topography really allows us to

2:04

continue that work in a complex contact lens space, but also being able to really advance our dry eye diagnosis and work

2:12

up and things like that. It's exciting to have both rooms fully equipped with topographers and being able to

2:20

evolve our dry eye work a bit further as well. Excellent. Great.

2:25

Well, so at the beginning of this, one of the statements I made is that a lot of the

2:34

the eye issues that we have as adults can, to some degree, be baked in as kids

2:40

as we're growing, as we're developing. In a lot of instances, the cards are maybe already dealt,

2:46

certainly around things like myopia, if we're experiencing that as children.

2:52

Adults do have a lot of responsibility in that sense to make sure the kid's vision develops properly.

2:59

One of the things I hear a lot of people concerned about is so-called lazy eye. I think the correct term for it is amblyopia.

3:08

What are some of the early signs of lazy eye, and how can parents identify

3:15

if their child might have it? Yeah, look, there are two conditions that go hand-to-hand.

3:20

Lazy eye amblyopia is where one eye has a reduced capacity to see clearly compared to the other.

3:27

The two probably most common associated with that is a large difference in the description between the two eyes or one eye that is turned.

3:35

A turned eye, a lot of the time, can be fairly obvious, and so that's a very quick marker.

3:42

Amblyopia, though, if you've got a difference between the two eyes with one eye having a much larger prescription.

3:48

The kids are amazingly robust in the ability that they adapt to whatever they're handed early on.

3:56

So sometimes it may not actually be obvious, and it's through early regular checkups that it's picked up.

4:03

So you can get some signs where the kids might be persistently holding things

4:09

close, getting close to the TV. You might see them persistently shut one eye in bright light and sunlight or cover

4:17

one eye or do this business when they're drawing and things like that. So there might be some obvious behavioural signs, but a lot of the time they can be

4:25

just picked up through an examination. So being on that front foot, a bit like getting early dental

4:30

checks and early medical checks done. The early vision exams are part of that process

4:36

of picking things up because it won't be obvious. And how is it treated? And is there a critical age by which it should be addressed?

4:47

I like to use the word sensitive age. Primary school or before primary school is the number one.

4:55

So the earlier, the better. Once you start getting into late primary, teenage years and onwards,

5:01

it's not that it can't be treated, but it's a lot more difficult and requires a lot more effort.

5:06

So the big hits are best done before school on being able to pick it up.

5:12

One of the by what we see clinically and in the research is that an appropriate

5:18

prescription at the right time can do a lot about trying to manage amblyopia or a lazy eye and strabismus to a certain degree.

5:25

It's not a 100% hit rate, but that's the number one leading therapy that you start with is getting the eyes back into balance,

5:33

and that's a really important one. And obviously, parents have concerns about their kids needing glasses,

5:38

and a lot of those concerns come from more age-related issues. But glasses become in the right case is a very important thing to consider

5:47

managing those kinds of cases. And can amblyopia be fully corrected,

5:54

or will children who have it always need some kind of vision support as they as they grow older?

6:01

That can vary from case to case. There is certainly an age at which once they leave that sensitive period,

6:07

that if they're not being so compliant with wearing a prescription, that it's unlikely to go backward again.

6:12

So good compliance early on is really important until they get into those teenage years.

6:18

That's a hard one to answer. There are certainly going to be some people who once they start wearing glasses, that is their vision did not develop in a typical fashion,

6:28

and we just need to be able to manage that and that's something we go through when we're

6:34

talking to parents, when it's discovered that the child's got amblyopia, of trying to give them some long term concept of this may well be

6:41

something that they need to be continuing to wear this for the rest of their lives and in some cases, we might be able to

6:47

back the prescription off a little bit, but it's very case by case basis.

6:53

Aside from glasses, are there other treatments that can be offered, like

7:00

patching or is it atropine, eye drops? Are there any other treatments that you offer?

7:06

You look at probably two types of therapy. So you've got what they call penalization therapy, and then you've

7:12

got binocular therapy. And so binocular therapy is probably the future and a more modern

7:18

way of looking at things. Penalization is when you get into patching or blurring one eye, either optically or with the drop.

7:24

And that's the one that's probably... It's been around for 100 years, that kind of concept.

7:30

And it's a relatively simple treatment to do. Therefore, it's a very easy treatment to research as well.

7:38

When you dig a bit deeper, though, it is a difficult one to get compliance with a lot of the time.

7:44

So it does have its ups and downs in trying to manage it.

7:49

So it's effective for a couple of lines of improvement. What they're looking at now is that it's very easy when you have an eye that's not

7:56

seeing well to blame the eye being the problem when actually it's is really a processing issue on how the two pathways are interacting.

8:03

And so that's where the newer therapy is looking at getting the two eyes to integrate and work together at a brain level is looking really, really promising

8:14

because it's really a two-eye problem. The way we like to talk about it is the dominant eye is

8:20

telling the less dominant eye to back out of the relationship. So we want to work at getting that back together again.

8:27

So they all have their place depending on age and how someone's presenting.

8:34

Okay. So your lazy eye is something that I think a lot of parents have concerns about.

8:41

We've talked at length in other interviews about myopia and how that's

8:47

quite a prevalent concern these days, and in some places it's reaching epidemic proportions almost.

8:54

But one of the eye conditions that maybe we don't talk about so much with kids is the opposite of myopia.

9:04

Myopia means you're struggling. Well, one of the symptoms of it is that you struggle to see things at a distance.

9:10

But I think the opposite condition to that, where you struggle to see things up close, we maybe don't tend to associate that much with kids.

9:18

We think of older people, middle-aged and older who need reading glasses.

9:23

But it is a thing, isn't it? It is a condition. Maybe you can talk to us a little bit about the differences between hyperopia

9:30

and the other one that affects older people, presbyopia. Presbyopia, yeah. And they're both labelled alongside.

9:37

And if you're talking presbyopia, so the loss of near flexibility as we get

9:43

into our fourth and fifth decade and beyond. We'd like to joke it's you have too many anniversaries of your 39th birthday and the whole long arm syndrome.

9:51

And that's actually just a loss of flexibility. And that can be seen as almost a black and white opposite of myopia in that it is

9:58

blurry here, and it's to see and you preserve distance vision. Whereas the hyperopic version of long-sight, it's not that necessarily

10:07

someone can't be up close, but it's a lot of effort. And effort can be exposed in lots of different ways.

10:13

So it might be eye strain, might be headaches, might be sore eyes, might be a loss in concentration.

10:19

And in the research, there's an association between high degrees of hyperopia in children and reduced rates of literacy.

10:27

And so, they still haven't done enough to really tease out what that actually means.

10:34

But at a simplistic level, if you're having to work to keep the world in focus, then there's less concentration left over to

10:43

process what you're looking at. And certainly, when you pick up someone who might have an excessive amount

10:51

of hyperopia when they're young, the research indicates that if you do a partial prescription of that, some of the processing can improve

10:59

as a way of reducing the risk of those processing issues influencing academia later on.

11:06

And then at an extreme level, then it's the really high amounts of hyperopia where you start to get into a high prevalence of strabismus

11:12

or eye turns and amblyopia or lazy eye. And again, because it's not necessarily a blur issue, it can be more subtle signs

11:22

that have picked it up, that need to be used to pick it up. Right. So just to summarize what you're saying there.

11:29

So the presbyopia, the old folks problem is due to a lack of

11:35

flexibility in the lens in your eye, whereas hyperopia, on the other hand,

11:41

is to do with the elongation or lack of elongation of the eyeball itself.

11:47

Like myopia, we know it's because the eyeball's elongated too much, but hyperopia means it's maybe too short.

11:53

Is that an accurate summary? If you look at the eyeball as an optical system, there's lots of components that make up what that optical system is.

12:01

How curved is the front of the eye? How powerful is the lens? How long the eye is?

12:06

And yes, in my view, we know that the eye length is getting longer compared to how

12:12

the other optics play into balance. And yes, hyperopic eyes tend to be smaller than average. And what I think we see is that there's a pretty broad range of refractive errors

12:24

or status that infants have, so babies have, but they all move towards a small level of hyperopia as part of development.

12:33

And when you end up with excessive hyperopia, for some reason, there are some kids who just don't go through that

12:38

recalibration process and get stuck at that early, higher hyperopia level.

12:46

And again, we don't know why that happens. Sometimes there seems to be a family history element. I've certainly seen some families where there's no sign of it in the parents,

12:54

but all three or four kids might demonstrate it. So that's not a given.

12:59

So most kids are born with some degree of hyperopia, but you're saying that they outgrow that as they develop it?

13:07

The average for human beings is to be hyperopic, a little bit long-sided. And that range is spread out when they're young, but then comes

13:17

into a very narrow range. And so that's what you want to see. So if you're picking it up in an infant, then you've got to consider a number

13:25

of different factors as to whether it's a problem just yet. And the key part is just tracking to see where it heads.

13:31

And so you mentioned that glasses and getting

13:36

a prescription is one way that parents can address that situation before it becomes a problem with academic performance

13:44

and reading ability and that thing. So glasses and reading prescriptions are one of the

13:50

potential solutions to that, is that right? Yeah, and we got to be careful to say, look, it's not a cure for all of that things.

13:56

It's more it just decreases your chances of having that being an influence on how well you do at school and those sorts of things.

14:04

It's not there's so many factors that go into someone's ability to learn. Vision is just one of them. But vision being a dominant sense, it's important to make sure

14:10

it's well supported long before you get to school. Well, when it comes to buying glasses for our kids,

14:19

what are some of the things that we need to be aware of when selecting frames,

14:25

whether that be regular spectacles or even sunglasses, because kids need sunglasses as well.

14:32

What are some of the challenges that come with picking out a pair that maybe as adults, we don't necessarily experience?

14:38

One of the things I'm thinking of is kids, the actual structure of a lot of children's faces isn't fully developed yet, so they don't have the big

14:46

honking noses to rest their frames on. So you have to think about eye pads and that sort of thing. So what are some of the points that parents need to consider when

14:55

they're choosing glasses and sunglasses for their children? Yeah, look, and we'll talk about them differently because there are some choices

15:04

that you make in spectacl frames that you may not make in glasses. And certainly with spectacl frames, you certainly want to make

15:12

sure that they fit well. And there are a number of different factors with that. And you're right, we've got to make sure that they fit well for the bridge.

15:18

And so we have a broad range of kids' frames in order to find something that's going to fit well.

15:24

And there's a number of different ways of doing that. If you're going for plastic frames like

15:29

that bridge simply just has to fit. We can't reshape that.

15:35

So it's just got to fit. Whereas if we have someone where we can't find a frame like this that might fit,

15:42

then we're going for one with adjustable nose pads So that we can almost custom fit

15:48

the pads to the nose. So it's comfortable, it's going to sit in the right place. You also want to make sure the size.

15:55

So when the frames are put on, that we've got... If it's If it's going to be too wide, then it could be harder to adjust

16:03

to stop them from falling off. Lenses that are too big for a particular person increases the weight of the glasses.

16:09

And because kids are mobile, more weight means they're more easily going to fall off.

16:15

If you get something too small or too narrow here, it pushes the frame forward of the face.

16:20

And we also need to understand that, particularly, primary school kids are still growing.

16:25

And we'll often, in our practice, we like to supply glasses that are going

16:31

to see out a couple of years. So we have a bent on quality and longevity because we want them to be seen well

16:38

over that longer period of time. And so we often are looking at that having a pair of glasses that fits well now,

16:45

but also maybe has a little room for growth later on so that they're

16:51

getting a couple of years out of their prescription. Then it depends.

16:56

Then there are other factors that just depend on that child and that family. And so an important one that I think gets overlooked is that sometimes you just need

17:04

to make sure that the child is having some power in the choice of what

17:09

they're wearing so that they actually wear it. And if we ask parents what's important to them in the process of choosing frames,

17:18

then you get a variety of answers. And one of them is, I just want them to wear them. And so I think that's an easy thing to overlook sometimes

17:28

that the kid needs to have some choices and power in the decision. And so we look at that factor as well.

17:35

Some kids might be particularly rough with things. And so we have a range of frames that we call a peace of mind range so

17:41

that the manufacturer covers frame ranges very, very well in that situation.

17:47

Or you might get into things like the nano frames, which have special technology. These are particularly good with infants and toddlers.

17:53

There's a lot of frames that I wouldn't do that to. That just gives us the ability to find something for those kids that are a lot

18:01

more mobile and the ones that are having to wear them all the time and may not... A three-year-old hasn't learned how to look after things yet, as an example.

18:09

Even things like colour, getting the kids to pick out of frame

18:15

that's the colour that they like. You may not think it's a good choice as a parent, but the kids are the ones

18:22

who have to wear them, aren't they? So is that something that you do in your practice is show a few

18:27

different colour variations? Yeah, and there's That's something that we have to sometimes negotiate with parents

18:32

as well, finding that happy medium between what the parents want and what the kids

18:37

want, and making sure that at the same time that we're having to coach the kids on the frame that they like.

18:45

The best may not be the best fit for them long term. So is that something that our staff get with experience is how to negotiate those

18:54

variables that go on with their fitting kids with frames? Well, so it's been while since I've been to school, obviously,

19:02

but something I notice more and more of these days is that kids, even very young kids, wearing sunglasses because I think there's

19:09

much more awareness now of the dangers and the damage from UV radiation.

19:15

So is that something that you're seeing in your practice, even very young kids coming in for sunglasses?

19:22

Look, it does vary a little bit, but you're right. I think there's a lot more awareness out there. And I remember the stats and it depends on which study you look at,

19:31

but they say at some stage in your teenage years, you've already had 80 % of your lifetime of exposure to UV.

19:40

So that early intervention and prevention is ideal. And there's a number of different reasons the why the UV exposure is there.

19:47

We tend to get a bit more sedentary as we get older, so the kids are out there playing. Well, hopefully they are. That's what we're trying to encourage the whole myopia epidemic is get out there

19:55

and play, but be sunsafe while you're doing it. If they're little and they're looking up a lot, that's an opportunity

20:02

for UV to get in. They don't have as heavy a brow, so you get less of that natural shading.

20:07

If they're a bit recousted and they're keeping hats on, then maybe keeping a pair of sunglasses on might help because you certainly get a lot

20:13

of protection from a hat as well. But where sunglasses have their place, particularly on...

20:19

We live on the Gold Coast, and you get a lot of reflective glare from the water and the sand.

20:25

And we're on the East Coast, so we've got that morning sun. And so you've got the sun coming straight in, and then you've got it coming off

20:32

the water and coming off the sand. So you're getting an additional dose of UV.

20:37

And so with that outdoor lifestyle. And I was in Europe earlier this year, and a 26-degrees day there had a UV index

20:46

of four or five, whereas it's almost unheard of, of where we are, where the UV

20:52

index is always in the extreme level. So it's just there, whether it's an overcast day or not.

20:58

So wearing some protection all year round, particularly at the North part of Australia is very important.

21:03

And as much as we talked about having space to grow in the glasses with spectacles, I would say something a bit different about sunglasses is

21:12

the job of sunglasses is to block UV. And So you want them to fit very closely. So we don't talk about buying sunglasses for them to grow into.

21:21

And it's not like the parent buying the designer sunglasses, which might be several hundred dollars, where we're talking about a fairly

21:29

cost-effective thing to be purchasing. And so if they do grow out of them, then it's not a major expense.

21:35

So that's really important to have that wrap. That might get a bit more challenging if we're trying to put a prescription in it.

21:40

But if we're just talking about general UV care, then that's what we look for. Australian standards is important to follow.

21:47

The minimum that you want your child's sun glasses to be is an Australian standard category three.

21:53

And that guarantees the right level of UV protection has been made to that standard and a certain level of layer protection.

22:00

You can go even higher to category four, and that tends to be more your special purpose. So, if you're someone who goes to the

22:06

snow a lot or you're constantly out on the water, then a category four lens might be something you might want to consider.

22:12

They're a lot darker. And so the UV protection is probably similar. It's more about just the level of glare that you're having to deal with.

22:20

And one of the other questions people will often ask is it need to be polarized versus a tint.

22:26

Now, from a UV protection point of view, they should be relatively equivalent So polarization is just really about how it deals with the layer compared to a tint.

22:36

So if we think of reflected light is actually polarized. And so a lens that is simply a tint cancels UV but just darkens

22:46

the reflective glare, whereas a polarized lens actually cancels it out. So you're getting UV protection, you're getting a dark thing

22:54

of the glare, but also a cancellation of those reflections. So a lot of people find a polarized lens more comfortable,

23:02

even if it's not as dark as a tinted lens because of that reason. You can get various coatings on your lens as well, can't you?

23:10

Some that are, I think, resistant to dirt, resistant to oil and

23:15

smudges and that thing, which may be important for kids' glasses.

23:20

Is that something else also that you talk with parents about? It can be a tricky one because some of those coatings, as much as they might

23:27

be resistant when they do get dirty, look quite dirty. You need to be in the right frame of, and it just goes for all glasses,

23:35

is that all of those coatings must be treated like the paint on your car should be treated. They're all a hardened plastic coating, but if you rub dirt into them,

23:44

they will scratch, much like if you rub dirt into your car, it will scratch. For young kids, then the coatings may be less necessary

23:53

compared to older kids where they're going to see the value in having an anti-reflection coating on the back of the lens, which will make

23:58

it clearer to look through. If you're out in the water on the boat a lot, then having something that is hydrophobic would be useful and helpful.

24:05

The key part is, I think, the cleaning, getting into making sure that you use a spray or cold soapy water.

24:12

You're not just rubbing only into your towel, togs of shirt. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned about the fact that 80% of the UV damage

24:22

which we have in our life probably comes from the time that we spend as kids outside.

24:27

And although we try and encourage that, there are also of hazards that we have to be aware of.

24:34

I remember myself as a kid growing up, I played a lot of cricket, and I don't remember many of the other blokes out there wearing sunglasses.

24:43

I think now I chatter about all the hours we spend in the hot sun, which maybe brings me to the next point I want to talk about it.

24:52

That is like I remember one Sunday playing cricket at the Helen's Vale third division cricket club.

24:58

I was batting and up the other end was a mate of mine, and he went to hook a ball, a fast ball, and he got clocked between the eyes.

25:08

Of course, he went down. There was some claret on the pitch. But back in those days when something like that happened, You went off and you had

25:16

a cold drink of water, a couple of aspirin, and you expected to come back on and stiff up a lip, carry on with it.

25:22

And so hopefully, protocols in sports have evolved a bit since those days.

25:28

I know in professional sports, they have head bins. So can you talk to us a little bit about the dangers of head trauma,

25:35

particularly when it relates to vision? The concussions is obviously something that they're paying

25:41

a lot more attention to. And they've got the unfortunate stories of AFL players having to end their careers early because of multiple concussions.

25:48

And we had an interesting week talking a lot to other allied health who work in the concussion field.

25:54

And there's this thing called post-concussion syndrome, where someone gets a concussion and it doesn't actually...

26:02

After a couple of weeks of recovery, they still got ongoing, lingering symptoms.

26:07

And when you look at people who have post-concussion syndrome, more often than not, vision is involved.

26:14

And it's one of those things that may not be necessarily easily picked up through just clarity of sight.

26:19

It's not like a sight problem. It's not like they've lost their ability to see 20/20. Quite often it's a binocular vision.

26:25

So how the two eyes are working together, or it's going to be an eye movement problem on how they actually are able to move their eyes.

26:33

And that's one of the reasons that you need to take a concussion seriously, because during that recovery period and then also as a post-concussion

26:41

sufferer, your reaction times, visually, are slower, and therefore you're more

26:48

likely to suffer a second concussion. And that's when you start to get into more trouble is when you get that

26:54

type of successive concussions. So there's the prevention of being aware I'm mindful my son is starting to play

27:03

the international game of football. I'm not allowed to call it soccer, but let's call it soccer

27:09

for the sake of clarity. I'm quite concerned about him, how much he heads the ball and things like that.

27:16

We have chats about that. But what's nice to see is that even at his level, at primary school level, the coaches are becoming a lot more around the questions and resting and

27:25

making sure that you recover from it. You don't put yourself in a situation of stacking in concussions of each other.

27:31

So prevention is a big one. But once you've suffered a concussion, if after a few weeks that you are still

27:39

getting symptoms, then that's something that we can deal with and need to deal with because that's not something

27:45

that may get better by itself. Yeah, it's like it's something that affects people at all ages,

27:53

I guess, isn't it? Like seniors have falls and that's something that they may want

27:59

to be I'm aware of as well. But I know, kids, I think as you get older,

28:04

you're a bit more protective of your body, but compared to when you're a youngster, I see kids on the skateboards

28:11

or E-scooters doing crazy stuff. And I think that's got to be a lot of the concussion cases that you

28:18

see in your clinic there. And worse. We've seen some fairly hefty brain injuries from people having skateboard

28:25

accidents, not wearing helmets, those sorts of things. So sometimes that can be quite innocuous. So head protection is certainly an important thing to reduce your likelihood.

28:33

And I think that's the tricky part with concussion is it may not always show up on an MRI. That's where it's taken some time for things like whiblashing

28:41

and concussion to get some acceptance that you can't necessarily image the damage and that you do have to base a lot of it on history and symptoms.

28:48

Unfortunately, we're able to understand the problems we're looking for in a concussion, and that can become a normal part.

28:56

We can use some of our regular binocular vision routines and examinations.

29:02

There's an instrument over my shoulder here that we use where we can get a finer measurement of how the two eyes are working together to measure with

29:11

goggles what the eyes are actually doing as they move to get a better sense of deeper down, what's actually happening.

29:19

But we do see some interesting cases where it could be the simplest thing, creative concussion. Someone pumping up the tire on their push bike when they weren't looking the push

29:28

bike fell, hit them on the head, just happened to hit them in the wrong place at the wrong time at the wrong speed.

29:35

And they ended up with a concussion that took them a number of years to recover from. And so it doesn't need to be a massive big accident for it to be a concussion.

29:44

It can be a simple two kids running together on the sports field, and one of them gets concussed and the other one doesn't.

29:53

Indeed. All right. Well, Paul, unless you've got anything further you'd like to add,

29:59

maybe we might wrap up today. So just remind us, how can people get in contact with you

30:05

and engage with your practice there at Varsity Lakes? So we've got our website, lots of information on the website.

30:13

you can book an appointment using our online booking system there.

30:20

If it's something where you're feeling like you need to discuss your situation

30:25

a little bit further, then you can ring the staff on

30:31

and they're great at being able to find out what your needs are and get you booked in to the right

30:36

person for the right amount of time. All right. Well, so if you're watching this and you found this content to be valuable,

30:43

then don't forget to hit the like button because it really helps us out with the YouTube algorithm.

30:49

And also subscribe to be notified when Paul releases more valuable YouTube videos like this one.

30:55

Also, please follow Paul's Instagram and Facebook business page. So you can get his updates

31:02

when he gets more high tech vision toys at Varsity Lakes. All right. Well, thanks a lot, Paul,

31:07

and thanks a lot for watching everyone. Have a good day. All right. Thanks again.