Posts Tagged ‘lazy eye’

Does your back to school check list include an eye exam?

Posted on September 1st, 2011 by Alex

Did you know that 80% of what you learn is through your eyes? And, more than 60% of children with learning problems have undiagnosed vision problems?

Many parents rely on school vision screenings to check for vision problems. Here’s why that isn’t enough:

  • The main point of school vision screenings is to check how well a child can read a chart from 20 feet away (called distance vision) – this is by no means a comprehensive eye exam.
  • Problems with seeing close-up (near vision) are not always tested during a screening.
  • A child can easily pass a vision screening, but not see well enough to read a book.
  • Vision screenings are extremely difficult for children less than 4 years of age.
  • Vision screenings can miss some of the most common vision problems, including eye coordination (making sure both eyes are working together), lazy eye and farsightedness.
  • Only an annual eye exam can check the health of an eye and ensure that they are disease-free.

As students around the country begin to go back to school, remember to make an appointment for your child to receive a comprehensive eye exam in order for them to maximize their ability to learn. Many parents do not know about the challenges students face, such as needing glasses, until they take their child in for a comprehensive eye exam.  Check out SeeMuchMore.com and learn how you can give your child the best chance.

To support VSP in our mission to increase access to quality eyecare for thousands of children in need, please take the free Eye Pledge. When you pledge to take care of your eyes VSP will direct a gift certificate for an eye exam and glasses to a Boys & Girls Club member in need in your community.

Take the VSP Eye Pledge now and help a child be better prepared to go back to school and learn to his or her full potential!

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3- to 5-year-olds need eye exams

Posted on February 22nd, 2011 by Jessica H.

Jessica Hein, member of VSP's Eye Health Management Team

VSP has always promoted the importance of eye exams starting at 6 months to detect certain infections, congenital, or hereditary eye diseases that may be present at birth or develop shortly thereafter. Eye doctors also check to make sure their eyes are working together. If not, one or both eyes may be affected and that could lead to a lifetime of poor vision. If treated early, the impact can be greatly minimized.

Just last week the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) statement in Pediatrics also confirmed the importance of vision screening for children 3 to 5 years old. This new statement is an update to the 2004 statement on vision screening and says, “There is adequate evidence that early treatment of amblyopia (lazy eye), in children ages 3 to 5 years leads to improved visual outcomes.”

Children’s eye exams can identify nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism, conditions that can be easily remedied with prescription glasses. But an eye exam can also detect amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus. Strabismus is a condition in which the eyes don’t look in unison at the same object. Strabismus is a physical disorder; amblyopia is the visual consequence. Amblyopia and strabismus are most effectively treated when detected early. Treatment includes visual therapy and, often, surgery. Left undetected or untreated, blurry or double-vision may be a lasting result.

Be sure to take your children for annual eye exams. Healthy vision is essential to a child’s ability to learn and achieve their academic potential, and to play sports and other activities.

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Importance of Children’s Eye Exams

Posted on January 18th, 2011 by Jessica H.

Jessica Hein, member of VSP's Eye Health Management Team

Eye exams for children are extremely important.  Approximately 5 to 10 percent of preschoolers and 25 percent of school-aged children have vision problems such as an inability to see clearly at a distance.  Early identification of a vision problem can be crucial because children are often more responsive to treatment when problems are diagnosed early.  Another reason to have your children’s eye examined is the early detection of diseases such as diabetes. 

For school-aged children, an eye exam every year is recommended, even if no vision correction is required. In between those yearly eye exams, keep a look out for symptoms of eye problems in your child. Because, like everything else going on with their little bodies, their eyes can change seemingly overnight. Here are some things to watch for: 

  • Squinting: The classic symptom of either nearsightedness (not seeing well far away) or farsightedness (not seeing well close-up). Glasses are probably in order.
  • Alignment problems: If one eye keeps “drifting off,” it could be “lazy eye” or amblyopia. Treatment includes a corrective eye patch on the normal eye so it forces the weaker eye to work harder and improve. The younger the child, the better, to avoid a grade-school patch.
  • One eye: If your child closes one eye and it helps him or her see better, there could be a structural problem like astigmatism.
  • Eye rubbing: If your child rubs his or her eyes or you hear complaints of headaches, see the eye doctor. There may be some eyestrain going on that glasses can help.

When you make your appointment for an eye exam with a VSP doctor, don’t forget to make one for your children.  It’s an important part to maintaining their healthy development.

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About Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)

Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Lisa P.
Joel Kestenbaum O.D. is a VSP provider in Long Island, NY.

Joel Kestenbaum O.D. is a VSP provider in Long Island, NY.

Guest blogger Dr. Joel Kestenbaum returns with a post about amblyopia, a.k.a. lazy eye and the importance of early detection.

Lazy eye or amblyopia is reduced vision resulting from vision deprivation to one eye. Reasons include large differences in vision between the two eyes or misalignment of the two eyes resulting in one eye being stronger than the other.

If not corrected at an early age, the lesser-seeing eye may have permanent vision loss.   The brain will usually start to suppress the image of the poorer eye possibly resulting in useless vision.

As an aside, statistics show that 80% of a child’s learning comes through the eyes.  Early detection and early correction are imperative to a child’s binocular eyesight.  I see many young patients whose parents never realized that having an eye exam before age five can affect the child’s lifetime education.  And what is even worse, most pediatricians think that reading the eye chart in their office is an eye exam.  What they also don’t realize is that 20/20 does not mean 20/perfect.  As a result, the doctor’s that see the most children inadvertently do an injustice to their young patients.

Here is one example: Many kids can see 20/20 but if they are “farsighted” or hyperopic, their eyes work hard to focus on distance objects and work harder to focus on close objects.  It’s like the automatic zoom lens on a camera.  When the eyes point to an object, it is natural for the brain to signal the eyes to focus.  The problem is that a child’s eyes have a large amount of focusing power.  The other problem is that the harder a farsighted child has to focus, the more likely that the child will develop a crossed eye, possibly resulting in a lazy eye.

So what do we do about it?  First of all we need to educate the educators and the primary medical providers to screen children and to understand that an eye doctor should examine eyes just as a dentist should examine the mouth.  We need to catch lazy eye early.  Treatment for lazy eye includes eyeglasses, patching therapy, eye drops, surgery, and/or eye exercises.  If not treated, the amblyopic eye may never achieve good vision and may in fact develop functional blindness.

So the bottom line is early detection, early intervention and education.  See you in the next blog.

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