Question

Define amblyopia and discuss why it is so important to detect this condition in young children.

Answer 1

Amblyopia is also called as "Lazy eye". It is a disorder in which there is a loss of coordination between the brain and the eye. In most of the cases, only one eye is affected. However, rarely both the eyes may also be affected. The underlying cause for this disorder has been due to one of the following three reasons mentioned below:

1. Strabismus: A condition where it becomes difficult for both the abnormal eye to coordinate with the normal eye to avoid double vision. In other words, it is a disorder in which the eyes do not line up together for normal vision.

2. Refractive error: where the shape of one of the eye may result in vision impairments like nearsightedness or farsightedness or astigmatism.

3. Cataract formation: A cloudiness of the eye lens may happen only in one of the eyes which obstructs light from entering and focusing vision.

        The overall outcome of such a condition is that the suffering patient brain will only prefer to use the normal eye for accurate vision and reduce the dependence on the affected eye, which is refereed as "lazy eye" as it does not work properly.

      It is very important to detect this condition early in young children because it is treatable. During early childhood, a child's brain actively develops the visual processing network. This process augments from the first month of life and develops completely by the age of 8 to 10 years. If it is not treated within this period, the affected eye may never develop good vision. The treatment involves strategies of training the patient to use the weaker eye preferentially over the normal eye.