Treatment of amblyopia

In the absence of obvious eye disease, the visual acuity of the eye is still not above 1.0. We call this symptom amblyopia. Amblyopia is an eye disease that seriously endangers children's vision. If amblyopia is not treated well or is treated too late, it will cause other eye diseases in children and even cause blindness, so we must treat it in time.

Are we completely helpless in treating children's amblyopia? In fact, there are many ways to treat children's amblyopia, but we have found that each method of treating children's amblyopia has its limitations. Therefore, we must understand that different symptoms of amblyopia require different treatments. Remember to choose family treatment as the main method, which can protect children's safety and be economical.

The commonly used traditional methods are as follows:

(1) Occlusion therapy: Occlusion therapy is an ancient and effective method of treating amblyopia. It is one of the simplest, most economical and most effective methods of treating amblyopia in children.

①Strict monocular cover method: suitable for children with anisometropic amblyopia and strabismic amblyopia. Children of this type often have better vision in one eye, while the other eye has poorer vision due to deeper inhibition.

The method is: use a black cloth eye patch to tightly cover the eye with better vision, force the amblyopic eye to see things, stimulate it and exercise it, gradually eliminate inhibition and improve vision. For children with amblyopia under 3 years old, cover the eye for 3 consecutive days and then release it for 1 day. Children over 3 years old can cover the area for 3 to 5 consecutive days and then leave it for 1 day. During the treatment process, the visual acuity changes of the amblyopic eye should be checked and reviewed every half month. At the same time, attention should be paid to the visual acuity of the healthy eye to prevent vision loss caused by occlusion.

② Alternating binocular cover method: suitable for amblyopia caused by refractive error and monocular strabismus. If the amblyopic eyes have equal vision, the eyes can be covered alternately with equal amounts, with the left eye covered for 3 days each. If there is a difference in vision between the two eyes, the 4:1 method can be adopted according to the specific situation, that is, cover the eye with better vision for 4 days, and then cover the eye with poorer vision for 1 day. This will allow the eye with poorer vision to see more things and exercise, which will promote faster improvement of vision, so as to achieve the goal of balanced improvement of vision in both eyes.

③ Half-occlusion method: suitable for children whose amblyopic visual acuity rises to above 0.7. Using a translucent plastic film to cover the healthy eye can artificially cause the healthy eye's vision to be lower than that of the amblyopic eye, giving the amblyopic eye more opportunities to see things, which is conducive to the establishment and improvement of binocular vision function.

④ Short cover method: It is suitable for those whose amblyopic eye has returned to normal but is still lower than the healthy eye. To consolidate the therapeutic effect, the healthy eye can be covered when doing homework or reading, and not covered at other times.

(2) Fine vision training: It is a special application of training for amblyopic eyes, which is beneficial to visual development and improving vision. There are many methods for fine vision training, which should be selected according to the age, intelligence and vision of the amblyopic child. For example: use red silk thread to thread the needle, and the size of the needle can be determined according to the vision. You can also practice embroidery, tracing, painting, calligraphy, etc. Fine vision training must be done with the amblyopic eye, once a day for 10 to 15 minutes each time. Fine vision training is an important part of the successful treatment of amblyopia in children. Parents should attach importance to this simple and easy training and keep doing it.

(3) Amblyopia treatment device: such as pulsed red light therapy, which is suitable for children with various amblyopia. It is irradiated 3 times a day, each time for 15 minutes, and a course of treatment is 3 months. Afterimage lamp is suitable for amblyopia with non-central fixation. Its main disadvantage is that the treatment course is long and each treatment lasts a long time.

(4) Comprehensive therapy: Since the mechanisms of various treatment methods are different, comprehensive therapy is superior to single therapy. For children with amblyopia in one eye, the healthy eye should be covered first to give the amblyopic eye more focus training, combined with fine vision training, pulsed red light stimulation, etc. For amblyopia with eccentric fixation, the afterimage method can be selected. If the visual acuity of the amblyopic eye improves after several months of treatment, the patient can go to the hospital for further treatment (for example, when the visual acuity rises to 0.6, a fixation machine can be used for fusion training).

The above article introduces the causes and symptoms of amblyopia. We need to understand that different symptoms of amblyopia require different treatments. With our current medical technology, commonly used methods for treating amblyopia include occlusion therapy, fine vision training, and we can use amblyopia treatment devices and comprehensive therapies to treat amblyopia.