cure lazy eye
We will clarify your doubts about how to cure lazy eye, through treatments that Dicopt has.
In this article, we want to answer all your questions about how to treat amblyopia (lazy eye), as well as the possible treatments your ophthalmologist can tailor to your child's diagnosis. We'll also explain how Dicopt can help your child improve their visual acuity with virtual reality games, offering a novel and different approach to traditional treatments.
Amblyopia, or "lazy eye," occurs without any alteration in the eye's structure. As a result, there is a significant loss of visual acuity; that is, an amblyopic or lazy eye does not achieve its full visual acuity, even with corrective lenses.
Correcting a lazy eye is possible as long as amblyopia is detected and treated in time, which is usually before the age of 7 or 8.
The process for correcting amblyopia (lazy eye) should begin in a doctor's office. If you notice any symptoms of amblyopia in your child, take them to the doctor as soon as possible.
There, the specialist will perform an eye exam to diagnose your eye health. This process usually involves using eye drops to dilate the pupils, which can cause blurred vision that may last for several hours or even a day.
The method used to assess vision depends on your child's age and stage of development:
- Since the child is born up to three years. An illuminated magnifying device can be used to detect cataracts. Other tests can assess the young child's ability to fix her gaze and follow a moving object.
- Children of 3 years and up Tests performed on children this age use pictures or letters to assess the child's vision. In these tests, each eye is covered in turn to test the other.
Lazy eye treatments
It is very important to start treatment for lazy eye as soon as possible, especially if it is during childhood, since it is at this age that the complex connections between the eye and the brain are being formed.
Therefore, it will be easier to solve the problem while it is developing than once the connections between the eyes and the brain have developed.
Lazy eye treatment in children
Glasses
Glasses are prescribed when amblyopia is caused by anisometropia . The glasses help send clear, focused images to the brain, which then teaches it to start using the weaker eye. This allows the brain to use both eyes together and develop normal vision. However, in most cases, glasses use should be reinforced with the following methods.
eye patches
This is the most common treatment . In many cases, children with amblyopia must wear an eye patch over their healthy or dominant eye. The patch is worn for 2 to 6 hours a day while the child is awake for several months or years, depending on the condition. Ensuring a child wears the eye patch can be challenging.
Distraction with a new toy or virtual reality games can help children forget they are wearing an eye patch.
Atropine drops
Sometimes, despite the best efforts of parents, some children do not wear the eye patch. In these cases, atropine eye drops can be used.
Just as an eye patch blocks vision in the healthy or dominant eye, atropine drops will temporarily blur vision in that eye, forcing the brain to recognize the images seen by the lazy eye.
Surgery
If strabismus is causing amblyopia and treatment with glasses, patches, or drops does not improve eye alignment, eye muscle surgery may be an option.
Surgery may also be performed if amblyopia is caused by a droopy eyelid or a cataract. The surgery involves loosening or tightening the muscles that cause the eye to wander. This type of surgery usually does not require an overnight hospital stay.
Visual therapy
Visual therapy is a program of non-surgical visual activities , personalized and supervised by a specialist, that is designed to correct some vision problems or to improve visual skills.
At Dicopt we have promising technologies applicable to visual therapies to increase their effectiveness.
Lazy eye treatment in adults
The most common treatment for amblyopia (lazy eye) in adults has been to cover the stronger eye to force the weaker eye to work harder. However, this treatment has yielded better results in children than in adults.
In recent years, groups of scientists and clinical trials have shown that it is possible to train amblyopia using specific techniques to correct lazy eye in adults, improving their spatial vision and brain plasticity.
The degree of plasticity is important as it provides the basis for treatment of a possible failed period of early visual development in childhood.
It may happen that, for some specific reason during the maturation of the visual system development, it is interrupted, such as by strabismus, some refractive error, congenital cataracts and differences in prescription between one eye and the other.
Can lazy eye be cured?
Yes, it is possible. To cure lazy eye (amblyopia), we have several procedures that involve forcing the brain to pay attention to the images from the lazy eye so that vision in that eye is strengthened.
Therefore, the goal is to penalize vision in the healthy or dominant eye. This is done, in most cases, by wearing an occlusion patch over the healthy or dominant eye, in addition to employing other strategies.
How to cure lazy eye in children
Lazy eye can be cured. As we mentioned earlier, the best time to correct or cure lazy eye in children is during the period of visual acuity development.
Until the age of 8, their visual system is still developing, and therefore, treatment before this age would increase the percentage of success in correcting their visual acuity.
Therefore, the best way to prevent or diagnose lazy eye in time is to see an ophthalmologist when a symptom of amblyopia is detected.
Experts recommend a complete eye exam for children at birth and again at six months of age. After this age, checkups can be scheduled every two years, unless the ophthalmologist advises otherwise.
When the child turns 3 or 4 years old, the first visual acuity assessment should be carried out, which helps to detect the lazy eye in time.
How to cure lazy eye in adults
In cases where amblyopia or lazy eye is not diagnosed and therefore not treated during childhood, it could persist into adulthood, making treatment more difficult because the visual system is already developed.
Although it doesn't make it impossible. Many ophthalmologists have witnessed the effects of visual therapies and their results, encouraging their patients to try these types of therapies to improve their vision.
Through visual exercises , lazy eye is treated in adults, stimulating neuronal changes and thus helping with brain plasticity to improve visual capacity.
How Dicopt can help you
Dicopt is a medical device to treat lazy eye or amblyopia through Virtual Reality.
At Dicopt we have developed a Virtual Reality-based solution that allows the patient to treat lazy eye through video games and not leave the recovery solely to the use of the patch.
Many patients already work with Dicopt and their specialists can remotely monitor their visual therapy sessions for lazy eye.
The basis of this solution is that the amblyopic or "lazy eye " is shown the more dynamic part of the video game, while the "dominant" eye is shown the more static part. This means that both eyes work together, improving visual acuity and binocular vision.
Science has shown that the simultaneous use of both eyes is a key factor in recovering from lazy eye.
Using an eye patch is dissociative ; it only works the weaker eye. At Dicopt, we are convinced of the importance of exercising binocular vision, which cannot be achieved using only an eye patch.
Dicopt offers binocular training to complement patching. Through dichoptic virtual reality games , it's possible to recover from amblyopia (lazy eye) by using fewer hours of patching, and even avoid wearing the patch to school altogether.
As it is a very novel therapy for lazy eye and with the incentive of being cured through play, Dicopt has found that the patient is much more committed to the therapy since they do not perceive it as such.
Dicopt is registered as a medical device and has the CE certificate for marketing.
Dicopt is very easy to use!
Do you want a demo?
Dicopt is an app that is installed on the mobile, which allows the patient to carry out the therapy anywhere, adapting to the lifestyle of each family.