Adult Amblyopia Treatments

Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, is a condition in which one eye has greatly reduced vision that cannot be fully corrected by lenses. As a result, the brain relies on the stronger eye for vision, which causes the vision in the other eye to deteriorate. Amblyopia is best treated early in life when the child's vision center is still developing, but there are treatments that can be useful for adults as well.

Corrective Eyewear

• In many cases, the cause behind lazy eye is a basic vision problem, such as farsightedness, nearsightedness or an astigmatism. An optometrist may prescribe prescription eyewear, which will help correct the vision problems in the affected eye. Although this treatment will be required for the duration of the patient's life, corrective eyewear may be able to correct the adult amblyopia.

Eye Patches and Drops

• In some cases, amblyopia will respond well to an eye patch being worn over the unaffected eye. This will force the brain to measure visual perception through the affected eye. Because many of the symptoms of amblyopia are due to the brain effectively ignoring the sensory information from the affected eye, this type of treatment can encourage the development of neurons dedicated to processing information from the affected eye, which will help alleviate the symptoms of amblyopia. As an alternative, eyedrops with a chemical called atropine may be given to the unaffected eye, blurring the vision there temporarily and again forcing the brain to gain visual information from the affected eye.

Surgery

• Surgery may be used to treat weakened eye muscles, which can lead to some of the droopy eyelids, crossed eyes and double vision that can be caused by amblyopia. The surgery will strengthen the eye muscles, which will allow for greater mobility as well as improved ability to focus.

Vision Therapy

• One type of treatment that has proven to be especially effective in adults is a process called perceptual learning. Perceptual learning works by running the patient through a series of visual tasks to help stimulate his ability to identify and locate images. The National Institutes of Health has issued a statement showing that this type of therapy could be effective in treating older children, and there is evidence that it could be effective for adults with amblyopia as well. A study, published in 2004 in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was performed by Drs. Polat, Ma-Naim, Belkin and Sagi of Israel. They determined that perceptual learning could improve the vision in the affected eye of adults with amblyopia.