When Does It Become Impossible To Treat Amblyopia?

Amblyopia is described as a loss of fine visual acuity in one eye, or less commonly, both eyes, without any anatomical or pathological abnormalities. 

The existence of a condition that causes amblyopia to develop, such as a major anisometropic or isoametropic refractive error, continuous, unilateral strabismus, or some sort of deprivation happening before the age of six, is also important to this description.

What is the cause of amblyopia?

Every baby is born with weak vision. Their vision keeps improving as they become older. Both eyes must offer the same clean, focused image for optimal vision. 

Some youngsters have eye impairments as a result of their illnesses. Because of these issues, the youngster may see a different picture through each eye. 

The child’s brain attempts to correct the issue by shutting out the less appealing image. If the condition is not addressed while the child is still young, the brain of the youngster will always dismiss images from the weak eye. This results in amblyopia.

How is amblyopia diagnosed?

An eye exam will be performed by your doctor to check for eye health, a wandering eye, a vision disparity between the eyes, or impaired vision in both eyes. Eyedrops are mainly used to dilate the eyes. The eye drops induce blurry vision that might last several hours or even a day.

Is it possible to prevent or avoid amblyopia?

It is impossible to prevent amblyopia. However, visual loss as a result of it can be avoided. Keep an eye on your child’s vision. Contact your doctor if you have any concerns. 

Children with amblyopia who are diagnosed and treated early should be able to preserve the majority of their vision. They will almost certainly have visual difficulties for the rest of their lives if it is not corrected before the age of ten. The key to preventing eyesight loss is early diagnosis.

Untreated amblyopia in school-aged children can have a variety of consequences, ranging from fine visuomotor task problems due to diminished or missing binocular vision, to lower self-esteem, self-perception, and other psychosocial dimensions, to scholastic achievement restrictions. 

Where dense amblyopia is present at maturity, the probability of lifelong bilateral vision impairment rises by 1.2–3.3 percent. While optical rectification may improve amblyopic eye visual acuity to some extent, it appears to be insufficient in older children to fix the whole amblyopic visual acuity deficiency. 

However, traditional amblyopia therapy (occlusion, atropine) for this population may include risks that should be taken into account.

However, the Amblyopia Doctor suggests that it is always worthwhile to try amblyopia therapy for older children since many can and will improve their vision. Essentially, parents should not be told “It’s too late” when their older child is diagnosed with amblyopia.

Visit our website at www.amblyopiadoctor.com and find out more about the best treatments we offer for your child’s amblyopic eye.