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Last Updated: May 03, 2023
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Amblyopia and Childhood Blindness

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Dr. Chandrashekhar KaleOphthalmologist • 28 Years Exp.MBBS, MS - Ophthalmology
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Treatment for Amblyopia (lazy eye)

Hi. My name is Dr. Chandrashekhar Kale. I'm a pediatric Ophthalmologist and I'll be talking about Amblyopia and Childhood Blindness.

So when we say about pediatric ophthalmology the most common thing that comes to our mind is Bariatric Cataract and squint but if we look at the most common cause of preventable blindness in children then it's definitely Amblyopia or what we call as a lazy eye. Now Amblyopia is a Neurosensory disorder, that means your eye and brain both the things are involved. It's a condition in which vision in one of the eyes is less because of any focusing problems in your eye which occurred in your early childhood period. Now, this can be due to ocular misalignment which is called as squint or hindrance to light which enters the eye because of ptosis or cataract or can be simple refractive errors, especially the higher refractive errors. Usually Amblyopia is more commonly seen in one eye and hence is very difficult to detect because when the child sees, he sees with both the eyes open so if one eye has got a poor vision and another eye is good, the child will not be able to identify that he is not able to see with one eye unless he closes one of the eyes. So here comes the importance of early screening of the eyes.

As far as the treatment of Amblyopia is concerned, it is mostly treating the pre-depositing factors like squint or cataract where it's a surgical intervention or you can do a simple refractive error check up and glasses prescription. One of the most important factors for Amblyopia management is the exercises for lazy eye. The most common is the patching exercises where in you close the good eye and the child is forced to see from the poor eye. The principle behind this is once the child sees from the poor eye for a period of time your brain will get accustomed to see through the poor eye and gradually over a period of time visual improvement occurs in the eye. The only thing here is that the exercises, as well as the treatment, has to start before 8yrs of an age where in you can expect a complete recovery of the vision. Here, at our institute, we have a special device or software called the Vision Therapy software which is aimed for the improvement of vision in your Amblyopic eye.

This is basically a computer generated device where in some exercises are given via computers. Now since this is given by computer and designed in form of some small games the compliance in a child is much better as compared to the regular patching exercises. So, definitely, the visual improvement is much faster with this new computer generated exercises. So in a nutshell what I would like to say is that Amblyopia is definitely preventable, especially if you diagnose it at an early stage. We need more awareness regarding this condition, in the parents, in the public, also in the pediatrician so that the child gets his first eye check up as early as possible, preferably by three yrs of age. This is what I wanted to say about Amblyopia and treatment of lazy eye in a nut shell.

For further details, you can contact us at lybrate.com. Thank You.

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