Amblyopia, also known as ‘lazy eye’, is the partial loss of vision, either to a greater or lesser degree, in one or both eyes. It develops in childhood, and it is also when it can be corrected. This is why it is important to perform visual acuity checks of each eye in children at the age of 4 or 5 years.
Causes
Strabismus, refractive defect and congenital cataract are the three main causes of amblyopia. The most frequent cause is strabismus, which occurs when the eyes are not properly aligned, and thus the brain is only stimulated by the looking eye and avoids the stimulus of the ‘crooked’ eye. In the case of refractive error, the eye with the greater defect does not provoke the most appropriate stimulus to the brain and will not have clear vision. Finally, with congenital cataract, the brain does not receive stimulation from one or both eyes.
Symptoms and treatment
When a child tends to avert one eye, look at the blackboard sideways, or rub his or her eyes frequently, these are symptoms of amblyopia. When the child presents any of these symptoms, in addition to winking when looking in bright light, complaining of blurred vision or bringing the eyes too close to the book when reading, it is best to take the child to the ophthalmologist and start treatment, if necessary.
The treatment of lazy eye is very simple and inexpensive. Problems can be solved by wearing special glasses to correct the visual defect or by using a patch on the good eye to develop lazy vision. Another measure to tackle the problem of amblyopia is to blur the glass in the good eye to force the bad eye.