Strabismus treatments

In brief, strabismus is a physical disorder in which the two eyes are improperly aligned with each other. This eye problem has several forms of appearance. With one eye moving regularly, the other eye may point in, out, up or down. These four conditions are respectively called cross eye, exotropia, hypertropia and hypotropia. Yet there are still some forms that are unspecified, e.g. microtropia, esophoria and exophoria.

Congenital strabismus requires early detection and treatment

Different forms of strabismus affect varying groups of people. In particular, cross eye often occurs in newborn babies because of a low vision development. And some people actually get acquired strabismus due to some environmental reasons. Since strabismus can lead to double vision, blurry vision and amblyopia, early detection and treatment are critical. Parents should take their children to a doctor once a related sign is found.

Different reasons for strabismus

Unlike other ocular disorders like amblyopia, strabismus is a physical defect, which is caused by an unequal pulling of muscles at one side of the eye, or even an ocular muscle paralysis. From another perspective, the extraocular muscles do not coordinate properly and prevent bringing the gaze of each eye to the same point. As a result, proper binocular vision is impossible. Depth perception will also be affected. Among children between two and six years old, some of them have accommodative strabismus resulting from farsightedness compensation.

Possible treatments for strabismus

Like amblyopia, strabismus can be treated via patching, visual exercises and eye drops. In addition, bifocal glasses can aid in proper focusing. The most thorough treatment is surgery, which corrects the misaligned eyes. There are still different opinions about the age that is appropriate for children to receive strabismus correction surgery. Some eye surgeons argue that the eye structure of a young kid is not ready to receive a strabismus surgery, while others think that early strabismus correction is essential for developing motor skills.