An awareness campaign about Amblyopia (lazy eyes) and squint (crossed eyes) was taken up by L.V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) on the occasion of Children’s Day and as part of Children’s Eye Care Week on Tuesday.
Amblyopia is a vision development disorder among children in which an eye fails to achieve normal vision even with full prescription glasses or contact lens. In most cases, only one eye is affected but if left untreated, it can cause severe visual disability in the affected eye.
Over 19 million children aged less than 15 years were visually impaired and among them 12 million are impaired due to uncorrected refractive errors and amblyopia.
“Treatment of amblyopia is easy with correction of full refractive error with glasses and occlusion therapy with patching of the good eye. If treated early, good vision can be achieved, ” said Dr. Ramesh Kekunnaya, Head - Child Sight Institute, LVPEI.
Squint, also known as strabismus, occur in infants, children and adults because of imbalance of the muscles that move the eye.
It can also be due to neurological problems, or can even be a sign of a severe ocular problem such as a retinal detachment, or even eye cancer.
About 2-3 % of children have strabismus, a majority of which are left untreated and eventually develop severe vision loss. Treatment includes prescribing glasses, exercises and surgery, said Dr. Ramesh. A children’s eye care walk and a painting competition for children to express their creativity were also held during the week.
