What is the treatment for amblyopia?
Once amblyopia is detected, the brain must be encouraged to process visual information from the affected eye. This is frequently accomplished by applying a patch over the child’s good eye. Eye drops are also sometimes used to treat amblyopia. Left untreated, visual acuity in an amblyopic eye may be permanently reduced and a lifetime of poor and uncorrectable vision could result. This can become an ever more significant and disabling problem if the remaining healthy eye ever becomes diseased or injured. Unfortunately, once a child has reached roughly nine years of age, treatment rarely is successful. http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/ambloypia/index.htm [back to top] What is pediatric strabismus? Strabismus is a visual defect in which the eyes are misaligned and point in different directions. The disorder is common among children, but is also present in approximately 1 to 2 percent of the adult population – usually as a condition that began in childhood. Eye misalignment causes the brain to
