Lazy Eye. Lazy Reporting.

[swimlyn]

Disappointing to see such ignorant reporting in this day and age.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgq78y8w234o

Whilst there may be a problem with schools having stretched budgets, there’s no excuse for the uninformed way this issue has been addressed by BBC News.

Strabismus needs proper ophthalmic attention. Parents need to be alert to ALL potential health matters of course, but this is so easy to spot at an early age.

Patching went out with the ark. A complete waste of time, and encourages bullying at school.

My dds lazy eye was picked up at 18 months when I noticed she had a squint. The squinting eye was the lazy eye and had poorer sight that the other one. She got glasses and had patching treatment and also an eye operation as she still squinted with her glasses on.

Later on, her primary school (in Scotland) had an eye screening where they came into the school and did a basic eye tests and referred those who they detected that had sight issues.

I think it should be made clearer that children should go for eye tests from a young age whether issues are noticed or not and then should have their eyes tested regularly from then on.

P.s. lazy eye (amblyopia) is not the same as strabismus (squint) although one can lead to the other.

@swimlyn Do you realise that amblyopia isn't the same as strabismus? Strabismus can cause amblyopia, but there are other causes too.

The screening which takes place in schools is really important, it's obviously no substitute for a proper eye examination, but it does pick up those who have poor vision and then they are referred for a proper eye exam.

Patching usually takes place when a child is KS1 or younger as that when the brain is still malleable.

If parents don't wish to patch, there are drops available, but these, like all medications can have side effects, so most parents still choose to patch their child. Without patching, the child will always have poor vision in the eye, with patching you can often improve vision to near normal levels.

@swimlyn as others have said amblyopia , sometimes referred to as a lazy eye is a reduced level of vision due to something disrupting the visual development during the critical period of visual development. Strabismus( sometimes called a squint ) is an eye that turns. There are a number of different causes of amblyopia and some children with strabismus will have amblyopia as well. Patching to treat amblyopia is still a mainstream treatment and can be very effective but patching is NOT to treat strabismus. Some other causes of amblyopia include uncorrected refractive error and ptosis. Treatment for strabismus can include surgery, glasses and exercises depending on the type of squint. Amblyopia is the main cause of vision loss in young children and parents will very often not realise there is a problem until it is picked up at screening. Strabismus can be very obvious but isn’t always as some squints can be very small but still have as much potential to cause amblyopia and other visual problems. I am an orthoptist so feel it is important to reply to your post