What are the methods to correct strabismus?

Careful parents will observe in life that when their children look at things, they often cannot put their eyes in a normal horizontal position. Even if they are standing in front of them to look at things, their eyes will be tilted, and some are up and down, some are left and right. This symptom is also called strabismus. It is a very common eye disease. Strabismus is divided into esotropia, exotropia, and up and down strabismus. It will cause problems with the patient's eye development and eyes. Don't wait until the age of 12 when the vision of the eyes is fixed during puberty, otherwise it will be difficult to treat. Therefore, in the treatment of strabismus, we must find a real way to treat strabismus based on the individual's physical condition. Parents should take their children to the hospital for regular examinations to identify the type of treatment that currently needs to be treated.

Strabismus

It refers to the misalignment of the visual axes of the two eyes, which may be biased inward, outward, upward or downward. A normal person's two eyes should see things straight and parallel. When looking at an object, the image of the object falls on the fovea of ​​the retina of both eyes respectively. Then, through the brain's image fusion ability, the images seen by the two eyes are combined into one. Because of the misaligned eyes of strabismus patients, when they focus on an object, the image of the object falls on the fovea of ​​the retina in the normal eye, but outside the fovea in the strabismus eye. This causes double vision. The image of one eye is suppressed, and the single vision function and stereoscopic sense of both eyes are lost. Some may also suffer from poor visual development and cause amblyopia. Therefore, strabismus is not only an aesthetic problem, but more importantly, if not treated in time, it will often cause irreparable visual dysfunction and amblyopia.

Strabismus can generally be divided into esotropia, exotropia and superior and inferior strabismus.

1. Esotropia : commonly known as crossed eyes. The eyes are deviated inwards. Clinically, strabismus can be divided into congenital and acquired. Those that occur from birth are called congenital esotropia. The deflection angle is usually large. Acquired esotropia is divided into accommodative and non-accommodative. Accommodative esotropia often occurs around the age of 2-3, usually accompanied by moderate to high hyperopia, or abnormal accommodative cohesion and accommodation ratio; non-accommodative esotropia has nothing to do with accommodation power and refractive status.

(ii) Exotropia: This refers to the deviation of the eye position, which can generally be divided into intermittent exotropia and persistent exotropia. Because patients with intermittent exotropia have better fusion ability, the eye position can be maintained in a normal position most of the time by fusion ability. The eye position only appears exotropic occasionally in the sun or when tired and careless. Some children often close one eye in the sun to avoid diplopia caused by exotropia. Intermittent exotropia often develops into persistent exotropia, and occasional exotropia becomes permanent exotropia.

(iii) Superior or inferior strabismus: The eyes are tilted upward or downward. This is a rare condition and is often accompanied by a tilted head.

The treatment methods for strabismus vary depending on the type of strabismus, and can generally be divided into surgical treatment and non-surgical treatment.

(1) Surgical treatment is to adjust the strength of the external eye muscles and the position of their attachment points to restore the eye position to normal. Congenital esotropia and strabismus usually require surgical treatment. Non-accommodative and large strabismus also usually needs to be corrected by surgery.

(ii) Non-surgical treatment: Not all strabismus require surgical treatment. If it is accommodative esotropia, it can be corrected by wearing appropriate hyperopia glasses or bifocals. If there is moderate or high refractive error, glasses are often needed for correction. In addition, axial correction training can be used to help restore binocular single vision and increase image fusion ability. For example, training with a visual axis correction training machine, or wearing prism lenses...etc. If there is also amblyopia, amblyopia training is also an indispensable treatment.