Although visual display terminals have been used in office work for many years, research on the effect of long time work using them is still insufficient. Also, the impact of a LED light source for all day work is not clear. In this paper, the visual fatigue caused by long-term VDT work under fluorescent and LED luminaires was investigated though subjective reports of symptoms, ophthalmological parameters and physiological signals. The results show that visual fatigue becomes more serious with increasing time spent at VDT work. Compared to fluorescent luminaires, the LED luminaires produced significantly greater near point accommodation, blink amplitude and oxygen saturation but less dry eye symptoms, less best corrected distance visual acuity and less high-frequency electrocardiogram power as time passed, although all were of small effect size. Although the participants carried out eight hours of VDT work under the two light sources, at the end the symptom ‘tired eyes’ was rated as moderate while all the other reported symptoms were rated as slight.
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