Amblyopia, known as “lazy eye” is a disease of the visual system characterized by partial or complete loss of vision in one eye or both eyes. Amblyopia is a consequence of a binocular vision disorder without an organic lesion.

It can be classified into:

• Profound amblyopia - visual acuity of less than 10%;
• Average amblyopia - visual acuity between 20% and 50%;
• Mild amblyopia - visual acuity over 50%;

Children can develop amblyopia from birth until the age of 6-7 years. Children with amblyopia do not realize they do not see well with one eye. Thus, the brain ignores the images from the impaired eye and only perceives the images in the healthy eye.

If diagnosed early, the chances of treatment are higher. There are several forms of amblyopia, but the most common is amblyopia accompanied by refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism) or by strabismus.

Functional amblyopia can be reversible if diagnosed and treated before the age of 6-7 years (according to recent research, even before age 12), before binocular reflex (visual balance between the two eyes) is established. Treatment is more effective if started earlier, the best results being obtained in children who have received adequate treatment before the age of 10 years. Early detection allows functional amblyopia to be diagnosed from early childhood. Besides adequate treatment of a cataract or palpebral ptosis for example, amblyopia treatment consists, first of all, in wearing appropriate dioptres, then in correcting the eye impaired by amblyopia.

The most commonly used technique consists in obstructing the healthy eye according to a scheme established by an ophthalmologist, in order to stimulate the visual acuity of the eye impaired by amblyopia. This occlusion should be monitored because normal eye can, in turn, become amblyopic as visual acuity of the other eye is restored, if the occlusion is too long. In case of strabismus, a surgery is often performed on the extraocular muscles to restore the parallelism of eye axes.

Amblyopia treatment is individualized (varies from case to case) and is indicated by an ophthalmologist that tracks and monitors the results.