April 4 - 15 | Approximately 5% of the population has a "lazy eye"... what does this even mean? The proper name for "a lazy eye" is amblyopia. Having an amblyopic eye means that an eye is free of pathology but no matter what is done with glasses, contacts, surgery... the vision on that side is never as good as the other, non-amblyopic, eye. The limitation of vision is not with the eye... but rather occurs where the vision is processed inside the visual cortex of the brain. Vision is a learned sense. When we are born - we do not see well. Vision is "learned" throughout the first ~9 years of life and gradually improves from basic shapes to a high-performance, high-resolution system... unless something blocks/limits that development and causes the eye to become amblyopic. The two most common reasons why development is limited are: a turned eye (strabismus) or a large difference between the eyes of refraction (farsightedness/nearsightedness/astigmatism). Because the effected side of the visual system never develops the ability to process the information... it is stuck in time. There is debate over whether an eye can be improved past about age 9 but if caught early, eye patching, glasses, surgery are used to strengthen the trainable/plastic visual system of the effected side. Hence, this is one of the absolute most import reasons to have children's vision assessed early even if there are no signs that the child is having trouble. See us for more information on available amblyopia therapies. dr.j Studioeyecare.com
