Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)
Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, is a vision development disorder in which
an eye fails to achieve normal visual acuity, even with prescription eyeglasses or
contact lenses.
Amblyopia is a relatively common disorder and a major cause of visual
impairment in children. It represents an insult to the visual system during the
critical period of development whereby an ocular disease as Strabismus (eye
misalignment), anisometropia (refraction difference), high refractive error, or
visual deprivation as in congenital cataract, interferes with normal cortical visual
development. Approximately 3-5% of children are affected by amblyopia.
Symptoms may include noticeably favoring one eye or a tendency to bump into
objects on one side. Occasionally, patients will complain that one eye is blurry, or
younger children may report discomfort in the affected eye. Poor depth
perception or clumsiness may be noted but most of them are asymptomatic.
A child’s brain maintains a high degree of cortical plasticity until visual maturity
around the age of 9 to 10 years old. The general principle behind the treatment of
amblyopia is to blur the image in the non-amblyopic eye, therefore forcing the
amblyopic eye to be used for visual tasks. This has most commonly been
accomplished with occlusion therapy (patching) or atropine penalization therapy.
Visual plasticity is inversely related to age, therefore treatment at a younger age
is more effective hence the importance of early diagnosis and prompt treatment.
