Recognized as a significant vision problem that affects millions of people worldwide, one of the “hot topics” of advocacy at the recent 2019 VisionHelp Annual Meeting was Amblyopia.
Amblyopia/Lazy eye is a serious neurodevelopmental vision problem that causes vision loss in approximately 2-4% of the population or 1 in 30 people. Neuroscience has shown that Amblyopia occurs when there is a unilateral failure in binocular vision, occurring early in life typically infancy or toddlerhood.
When the binocular system is broken at a young age, a neuroadaptation occurs, known as suppression where the signal from one eye is “shut down” by the brain to counteract the confusion created by the broken binocular system. As a result of this unilateral failure of binocular function a cascade of delayed visual function occurs leading to the following:
- Reduced visual acuity (eye sight) in one eye
- Reduced, or no stereo acuity (depth perception)
- Poor…
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