HYDERABAD:Have you ever heard of ‘lazy eye’? The term might appear a little intriguing but the startling fact is that it is one of the most common eye diseases which affect 5 to 10 pc of children.
“Lazy eye or amblyopia is condition in which one eye has a better vision than the other. Therefore, the individual uses more the eye with better vision and neglects the eye with poor vision. As a result, the eye with better vision dominates, resulting in the degeneration of eyesight,” says Dr A Krishna Kishore, ophthalmologist at Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital here.
Refractive error in eyes, congenital cataract, squint and retinal pathology are some of the main causes of lazy eye. It is a problem affecting children and the biggest problem with diagnosing and treating lazy eye is lack of awareness about this problem among the public and the sufferers being children cannot even complain about it.
As lazy eye due to cataract appears in months-old babies, they cannot complain about the problem. In such cases the problem is found out only when parents see white spots in the pupil of the child and approach doctors. Even in grown-up children the problem is diagnosed late in most of the cases.
The lazy eye problem can be corrected if detected earlier. The sooner the diagnosis is done, the greater the chances of cure are. Lazy eye can be corrected in child up to eight years of age. But the chances of treatment in later years decrease, opine eye specialists.
If congenital cataract is found in babies, a surgery is done and removed. If refractive error is found to be causing lazy eye in children it, will be corrected with spectacles. Thus there are specific regimen for treating various types of lazy eye, explains Dr Kishore.
As there are treatments available for lazy eye if detected earlier, eye specialists advise parents to approach doctors immediately if their children are encountered with any vision problem.
Regular eye-screening for children is recommended to detect such vision problems at early stages. Parents need not get disheartened if their kids are diagnosed with lazy eye because there are effective treatments available for treating it, assures Dr Krishna Kishore