1.What does lazy eye mean?
Amblyopia and strabismus are topics that are intertwined and have very broad contents. Therefore, they should be examined together.
If a child has a congenital cataract or refractive error in one eye, a clear image cannot be transferred to the visual center of that eye in the child's brain. The brain ignores the unclear image on the unaffected side and the development of the visual center of that eye pauses. Thus, lazy eye occurs. While one of the two eyes can see well, the other has difficulty seeing. Since the child can easily adapt to the environment with his healthy eyes, families may be too late to notice the unhealthy eye.
2.When should children have their first examination by an ophthalmologist? How can families understand or take precautions against lazy eye?
Even if the baby is healthy, eye examination should be done by pediatricians after birth. If an abnormality is noticed by the physician, the baby should be examined by an ophthalmologist. If the parents or their families have problems such as lazy eye, strabismus, congenital cataract, and advanced refractive errors, the baby should be examined by an ophthalmologist within the first few weeks after birth. There may also be an underlying and life-threatening eye tumor. Therefore, if a child has a crossed eye, they should be evaluated by an ophthalmologist immediately. Thus, the underlying cause of the eye shift can be understood and its treatment can be done without delay. Even if he is healthy, after the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th. Ophthalmologist examinations should be repeated at the age of
3. What is the importance of early diagnosis of lazy eye?
The earlier the treatment of lazy eye is started, the sooner the results are obtained. It is possible to get a response from the treatment until the age of 8-9, but then it becomes increasingly difficult to get results from the treatment. In fact, the development of vision begins at birth and is completed at the age of 8-9 years. Therefore, the best thing to do is to avoid laziness. The brain is a learning organ and vision is a learned function. Vision is not just a process that ends in the eye. Early action is necessary for the healthy development of cells and pathways of vision in the brain. TO If there is a refractive error that may cause laziness with early diagnosis, it will be sufficient to wear only glasses before laziness occurs. But if it's too late, there will be laziness. Then we will need to close the good eye with glasses treatment and fight laziness. This is essential for the development of vision, but often a tedious process for the baby or child.
4. What kind of treatment method is followed in a child with congenital cataract?
If a child has a congenital cataract, it is not a black and white situation for us. There are also gray zones in between. A newborn baby with unilateral and advanced cataracts may need urgent surgery. In addition, we can recommend follow-up, glasses or occlusion treatment in a child with mild cataract, which we believe does not affect the vision that is not in the visual center.
5. How often do we encounter lazy eye in our society?
In 4% of children, we encounter lazy eye, which can cause permanent vision loss if left untreated.
6. What is strabismus?
Normally, both eyes are parallel in all gaze directions. Strabismus is the disruption of this parallelism in one or more gaze directions. In normal vision development, when the eyes are looking at the same point, the images from both eyes are superimposed by the brain and a sense of depth is created. With gliding, this visual development is interrupted. The level of advanced vision with a sense of depth is unattainable.
7. Can strabismus cause psychological problems in children?
Slipped eye, that is, strabismus, is an important factor not only in terms of aesthetics and visual function, but also in professional life and psychologically, since it can prevent eye contact. In interpersonal relationships, people maintain communication by looking at each other's faces and making eye contact. 70% of communication goes through non-verbal messages. What did we think by making eye contact and reading the facial expression, tone of voice, gesture and facial expressions of the person in front of us� We can understand it. If you can't make direct eye contact, if you can't understand how the person in front of you is feeling from the facial expression, then you have started the communication incomplete by 70%. These children may experience very serious social relationship problems.
8. What kind of way should be followed in the treatment of strabismus?
In the treatment of strabismus, a total examination of the eyes and then giving glasses if there is a refractive error, if there is a lazy eye, it should be struggled with, and if there are other structural abnormalities of the eye (cataract, droopy eyelid, etc.), it should be removed.
9. Will we continue to wear glasses and closure treatments after strabismus surgery?
The child will likely continue to wear glasses after surgery. Here glasses help us. Glasses allow the child to get a clear view. We aim to send a better quality image to the brain by eliminating the refractive error in the eyes. Thus, we can fight both lazy eye and gliding.
The treatment of strabismus is a whole. In addition to glasses, closure treatment is important in the fight against lazy eye. We do not struggle with laziness to see closure treatment so that strabismus will disappear. Our aim in closure treatment is to ensure that the vision becomes quality. Even if we make the eyes parallel by performing strabismus surgery, a quality image must come to the brain in order for the brain to grasp this and understand that it needs to be kept parallel. For these reasons, even if the eyes are paralleled after surgery or without surgery, eyeglasses and closure treatments in children should be continued under the control of an ophthalmologist until advanced ages.
10. Glasses numbers decrease over time or can the child get rid of glasses?
Our goal is not to reduce or get rid of eyeglasses over time. This is where families come into conflict and become frustrated. In fact, children usually do not have a reaction to using glasses. It's the families that are complaining. When we say that your child needs to wear glasses, we say, "Oops, are we going to wear glasses?" If they are launched to the child, there will be negative reactions to the glasses in the child.
11. What kind of path should be followed in closure treatment and how long should it be continued?
Closing treatment is a long-term treatment that can take 8-9 years. The family has a serious responsibility. Because the family will apply this treatment at home. According to the age of the child, the well-seeing eye is closed for a certain amount of time every day and sufficient stimulus is given to the low-vision side of the eye. If this treatment is interrupted before the brain vision development is complete, there will be no improvement. It is often not possible to force the child to continue this treatment. This should be continued with new methods and games according to the age of the child. Closure therapy can be made fun by playing hacking in the preschool period. If the child gets bored, the game should be diversified and closed. Parents should accept this treatment and tell the child, "This is a part of our life like eating and playing, we need to continue until our doctor says it's ok, we won't close it anymore" so that the child can adapt to the treatment.
It is essential to avoid experiencing laziness. For this reason, even if there are no complaints, babies should definitely undergo a complete eye examination and necessary precautions should be taken to prevent laziness.
In summary; Parents have responsibilities in the treatment of lazy eye and strabismus. They are prejudiced against using glasses, the application of occlusion treatment is daunting and takes years, excessive tolerance is shown in the closure application because the child does not want it, and the treatment is interrupted. We can say that the treatment of amblyopia is the main remedy for amblyopia, if parents take the treatment seriously and apply the recommendations of the ophthalmologist without delay.
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