Amblyopia: A Review.

Amblyopia is defined as the condition of reduced visual acuity not correctable by refractive means and not attributable to obvious structural or pathological ocular anomalies. It is presumed that the best possible farpoint corrective lenses are worn during the testing of visual acuity. In general, vision worse than 20/30 is considered to meet the criterion for amblyopia. This is also true when there is a significant difference in the best correctable acuity of each eye. For practical purposes, if the acuity difference is two lines of letters on the Snellen chart, amblyopia of the poorer eye may be present. Volumes of information and research exist in regards to amblyopia. Three of the most common facts known about this condition are listed below.
One, when amblyopia is not successfully treated in childhood, the patient must live an entire lifetime with the risk of suffering serious disability from an injury to the good eye.l
(cllpl) Given that 50,000 eyes are lost to trauma or disease annually in the United States,2 the likelihood of such an occurrence is not insignificant.
Two, it is commonly stated in the lay press and other media and from the professional lecture platform that there is no proven effective therapy for amblyopia in children older than nine years of age. Three, historically amblyopia has been treated with occlusion therapy. In fact, occlusion therapy for amblyopia has been in use for more than 2 centuries! Occlusion of the good eye is currently the treatment of choiceS and success
rates have been reported ranging from as low as 30% and as high as 92%.
With these facts in mind this paper, through a review of the literature, will address techniques, other than patching, that practitioners have used in reversing amblyopia in both adults and in children. Furthermore, it will discuss how successful these techniques were.