AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO EYE IRRITATION IN THE OFFICE - IMPORTANCE OF THE RELATIVE HUMIDITY?

摘要

Merging indoor air science, occupational health and ophthalmology is necessary to understand office-related eye irritation complaints. It is important to determine: 1) Eye blinking alteration like decreased blink frequency plays a role in the precorneal tear film (PTF) integrity and whether this causes increased reporting of eye symptoms? 2) Indoor air pollution causes PTF alterations and symptoms? 3) PTF alterations are associated with thermal factors,like the relative humidity? PTF alteration leads to eye complaints that may be caused by (i) thermal factors, (ii)demanding task content (increases of the expose of the ocular surface), and (iii) individual tear film characteristics.These factors progressively increase water loss and thinning of the PTF, which causes dry spots and dryness on the PTF. Another cause is irritating organic compounds, in addition to oxidation mixtures that are formed in reactions between ozone and certain alkenes (e.g. terpenes). Experimental findings in the literature support that eye irritation may be alleviated by high periocular relative humidity.