Affecting two to three percent of all children in the U.S., amblyopia—commonly referred to as having a lazy eye—is the most common cause of visual impairment in kids. But now a new study out of the Glick Eye Institute at Indiana University has found a new and perhaps less stressful way to treat this issue: Glasses that function as a sort of digital eyepatch.
Amblyopia means that a child has one eye that does not develop as well as the other, resulting in an eye that is more nearsighted than the other or that strays inward. Interventions need to be taken by around the age of eight—the age at which the eyes and brain are still developing, and thus can still change—or else that eye can become permanently blind.
But the normal treatments—an eye patch, or eye drops made of atropine that blur the vision in the stronger eye, both of which force the weak eye to “learn” to see better—are often difficult for young children to handle. Eye patches can be a source of torment, and up to a quarter of these children feel anxiety before using the drops. In fact, nearly 15 percent of children flat-out refuse to use the drops—imagine trying to encourage a three-year-old to have something splashed in their eye—meaning that parents are usually between a rock and a hard place when trying to help their children.
The new glasses developed by the Glick Eye Institute, however, may be a new solution for these kids. The glasses, called Amblyz™ occlusion glasses, can be modified to correct a child’s vision and featuring LCD lenses. These lenses can turn opaque, obscuring a child’s vision in the strong eye so that the weak one can become stronger.
Testing effectiveness
To test whether these glasses would work as well as the previous methods, the Institute recruited 33 children between the ages of three and eight, all of whom had amblyopia and required glasses to correct their vision. Then, the kids were separated into two groups. The first wore an adhesive eyepatch for two hours a day. The second wore the glasses for four hours daily, with the glasses obscuring the vision of the stronger eye every 30 seconds.
The results, which will be presented at the 119th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, were that both groups showed the same amount of improvement in the lazy eye: After three months of treatment, they averaged two lines of improvement on a reading chart.
“When you talk to adults who underwent childhood treatment for amblyopia, they will tell you that wearing a patch was the worst thing ever,” said Daniel Neely, M.D., a pediatric ophthalmology professor at Indiana University who led the study, in a statement. “With these electronic occlusion glasses, the child learns that the lens will be clear again in just a few seconds so they may be more cooperative with the treatment. For parents who have struggled with drops and patching, this could be a great alternative.”
The Amblyz glasses have officially been approved by the FDA as a medical device, and are available throughout the U.S. for about $450.
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Image credit: American Academy of Ophthalmology
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