Strabismus (also a medical term for crossed eye problem) is a condition in which both eyes do not appear to look at the similar place at the same time. The occurrence when one or both eyes turn in, out, down or up some or be all of the time.
Strabismus/crossed eye is a severe issue with teaming or coordination of eyes, one of the three visual ability range that make up purposeful vision. Because both the eyes are pointing at unalike places, the brain struggles to combine the images it perceives into a single, 3D image.
What causes Strabismus
When an individual has difficulty developing the visual ability of eye teaming/coordination. Infants perceive this skill in the very first few months after the birth. and more progressively over several months which continues over years as visual skill of eye teaming is combined with the sensory and motor skills development.
Most of the time the primary cause of the trouble of learning to alignment of eyes is unknown. It may be connected with family history of similar types of issues, developmental delays and other visual related conditions.
Children – Strabismus occurs mostly by the age of six and every so often by three years of age, but it can still occur at any age.
Older Children and Adults – Functional strabismus can take place at any age. Unexpected onset should be assessed instantly. Functional onset in young people and adults is often linked with more of near visual stress/strain.
Types of Strabismus A number of factors needs to be considered in determining the type of strabismus. The following are the most common ones:
1. Direction of the Eye Turn
The direction of the eye turn is selected by the following medical terms:
Esotropia – Inward
Exotropia – Outward
Hypertropia – Up
Hypotropia – Down
Cyclotropia – Rotational (not pictured below)
Types of Strabismus
Exotropia and esotropia are the most common types of strabismus which effects people. Patient may have any of these in isolation, but it may also be a combination such as one eye pointing inward and down (esotropia and hypotropia).
2. Frequency of the Eye Turn
Below listed medical terms designate the frequency of an eye turn:
Constant strabismus – When eyes are always misaligned
Intermittent strabismus – In this, eyes are misaligned some of the time
Intermittent strabismus is usually easier to treat.
The check-up includes estimating whether the eye(s) turn more when the patient tries to look at far sighted things or close up/zoomed things, whether there are any other positions that are additionally difficult such as looking to the up, down, left or right. Also, Caring vision team will want to examine if there are any other aspects, which trigger the turning of eye(s), for example it could be reading, driving, etc. Constant strabismus is difficult to treat, as it is tougher to retrain a visual system if the eyes on no occasion work together.
3. Which Eye is affected?
Depends, if one eye turns or both the eyes? A lot of people are surprised to know that most of the time it is better if both eyes are turning. This generally means that both the eyes are functioning equally.
4. Amount of Eye Turn
The question arises, Is the turn severe or hardly noticeable? How much the eye turns is an important parameter in the treatment program. Though it is noteworthy that a larger degree of turning is not essentially more difficult to treat with optometric vision therapy than a lesser turn of eye(s).
5. Sensory Issues
When both the eyes are not properly aligned (not pointing to same place at the same time) the person’s brain has to figure out what to do with the images of each eye to try to reduce confusion. This can result in one or more of the below:
Double vision – Could be constant or intermittent
Suppression – To learn how to turn off/overlook the vision in one eye
Anomalous correspondence – The effected person may learn to match up in the brain the wrong fragment of one eye with the other one
All of these aspects must be calculated in a strabismus assessment. If it is present, a term from each would be used to define precisely the type of strabismus it is.
For example: A 30-diopter Right Constant Esotropia with Suppression
Strabismus Symptoms
Strabismic patients incline to be less indicative than patients who have non-strabismic functional vision problems. The cause is that they often turn off (suppress) the information from the turning eye, sidestepping double vision and the indications that go end to end with it.
Patients with persistent strabismus are typically the least symptomatic because they suppress an eye repetitively whereas the patients with intermittent strabismus may have more symptoms as they suppress an eye irregularly and hence may experience double vision when not suppressing.
Some of the symptoms of strabismus are: pain or strain in eyes, headaches, double/blurry vision, fatigue.
Strabismus Treatment for Adults and Children
The initial step in treating strabismus is to make sure that the patient has best eyeglasses prescription. Caring Vision’s developmental Optometrist use specialized testing to check that the patient’s prescription lessens visual stress and make the most of visual function. In cases of accommodative esotropia, the correct glasses prescription can essentially reduce or abolish the eye turn when they are worn by the person.
Next step is visual stress reduction or visual hygiene. It regulates changes that can be made in the patient’s surroundings and behaviour to improvise the visual function. This is stated to as visual stress reduction or can be said as visual hygiene.
Dependent on the patient’s goal line, vision therapy may be suggested to treat the strabismus. There are two types of treatments for strabismus: one is functional and the other is complete.
A functional cure means that the patient’s symptoms will be lessened or removed, but the strabismus itself may keep on. The prediction for a functional cure is usually very good in most of the cases of strabismus.
Complete cure is eliminating the strabismus all or part of the time and beginning binocular vision. The diagnosis for a complete cure differs based on a lot of factors, most important of that is which type of strabismus it is. A complete cure is more difficult to attain and therefore takes longer time.
The Developmental optometrist at Caring Vision takes time to converse all of the treatment options that are available for the patient at the assumption of the Functional Vision Exam.