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| Image : Laitr Keiows@Wikimedia Commons |
Lazy eye (amblyopia) is certain condition when someone has a reduced vision which cannot be corrected by wearing glasses or contact lenses and is not caused by eye disease. So, this is not an eye disease but a condition of blurry vision. As a result of the condition, the brain doesn’t fully recognize the images seen by amblyopic eye. This eye problem is reported to be suffered by around three percent of children under six years old but teenagers and adults may suffer from this condition too.
Due to current techniques in the treatment specifically designed for this eye problem, there is a reason to be optimistic. According to National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health, children with lazy eye at the ages of 13 to 17 could improve their vision with a combination of glasses, patching, and near vision activities. Since 2005, there has been some research on visual improvement for patients over 12 years old including adults.
The followings are Vision Therapy to fix a lazy eye or treat amblyopia. The methods are considered the most common and quite effective to fix a lazy eye. The main purpose of the exercise is to strengthen the eye muscles. You should consult an ophthalmologist to determine whether, in your case, eye exercises will be useful.
1: Rolling Eye : To strengthen the eye muscles, you may start with rolling your lazy eye in a circular motion. This will strengthen the muscles around the eye and reconstruct the foundation needed for lazy eye in order to have contact with the brain. For adult, lazy eye exercises for adult people are meant to strengthen the ocular muscles in an effort to fix lazy eye. Adult lazy exercises will fortify the eye muscles responsible for moving your eyes.
2. Wearing an eye patch : For children diagnosed with early lazy eye, they can receive early stage treatment. The sooner they are diagnosed with lazy eye, the more successful treatment is likely. So, there is no need for therapy than just applying eye drops or wearing an eye patch for certain length of time. Eye patch is most recommended treatment since it is safe, effective and affordable. The lazy eye will be forced to work twice harder when the good eye is covered by an eye patch which will then make it communicate with the brain. This will also strengthen the eye muscles to repair the proper two-eyed vision. However, wearing a patch is not practical and can be unpleasant experience for children.
3. Corrective surgery : A surgical method to correct a lazy aye is considered not effective to correct the pathways of neural between the eye and the brain. Some surgeons perform the surgery to fix the lazy eye by cutting and stretching the eye muscles. IN order to change the position of lazy eye, the surgery will either strengthen or weaken the eye muscles of the lazy eye.
In fact, wearing glasses is useful for people with lazy eye especially after the surgery. If the lazy eye returns, they need to wear a patch.
Usually, surgery is conducted after successful treatment for a lazy eye. However, patches or drops may still be needed after surgery to treat a cross-eyed.
Latest Development
Treatment options for small percentage of children are not good. It is because poor vision is caused by weakened signal from the eye to the brain, then the children have to wear patches or take drops to boost the strength of the lazy eye. Wearing patches during school hours will alienate them from their peers so many of them refuse to wear patches.
To avoid the problems, researchers have developed high-tech glasses called Amblyz, a programmable sophisticated glasses that can treat lazy eye. Its lenses have programmable LCDs which will make the lens over lazy eye automatically go dark for e few seconds of every 30 seconds. Besides Amblyz, researchers have also made some video games claimed to be able to strengthen the lazy eye.
