The Accommodative Lag and Refractive Error in Early Adults

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the distribution and correlation of accommodative lag with refractive error. Method: We had tested the clinical refraction and the accommodative lag in clinically normal 49 young adults (total 98 eyes) aged 18 to 25 years without abnormal binocular function. Monocular and binocular accommodative lag were tested with 0.50 D cross-cylinder lens and near vision test chart which had cross-hairs after full correction of LogMAR visual acuity over 0.05. Results: There was no statistical differences in monocular accommodative lag between right ( D) and left eye ()(p=0.858). The accommodative lag of male was higher than female and the range of the value was broader than female in binocular accommodative lag (p=0.015). The wider the inter-pupillary distance was, the higher the accommodative lag was (p=0.003). However, there were no differences with age (p=0.800) and dominant eye (p=0.402). The ranges of accommodative lag of low, middle, and high myopia were 0.75 ~ -0.25 D, 1.25 ~ -0.50 D, and 1.50 ~ -0.75 D, respectively, and the regression was 'y = -0.03953x+0.09205'. Conclusions: These data suggest that clinically normal young adults with high amounts of refractive error have more variable accommodative lag and increased spherical equivalent refraction.