Why Treat Amblyopia?

Why Treat Amblyopia?

Impaired vision in both eyes does pose a threat
to life in countries without a well-developed
system of health and social care [26].While amblyopia
can affect both eyes in such conditions
as bilateral congenital cataracts and bilateral
high refractive errors, usually amblyopia only
affects the vision in one eye, usually as a result
of constant strabismus or unilateral refractive
errors.

There is no evidence that unilateral amblyopia
affects duration of life.
The potential effects of poor vision in one
eye on quality of life include reduced binocular
visual acuity and reduced binocular cooperation,
causing for example reduced stereoacuity.
These effects will vary depending on the degree
of amblyopia with, for example an acuity of 6/9
in the amblyopic eye, causing much less disability
than an amblyopic eye with an acuity of
6/60.Visual acuity in the majority of amblyopic
eyes is 6/12 or better. This said, it would seem
that most adults with amblyopia are less affected
by their long-standing impairment of acuity
than adults who have recently suffered a loss of
acuity.

There is little evidence that unilateral amblyopia
significantly affects quality of life provided
vision in the normal eye remains good. Children
with amblyopia have been found to have
slightly reduced intelligence in one study.
however this may have been confounded by
the effect of strabismus as a marker for subtle
neurodevelopmental defects. The same study
concluded that the majority of visual defects
did not affect children’s learning. Chua and
Mitchell, in a recent study from the Blue Mountains
Eye Study found that amblyopia in
individuals 49 years or older did not affect lifetime
occupational class, but that fewer individuals
with amblyopia completed university degrees.
Assuming normal vision in the fellow eye,
reduced binocular visual acuity may result
either from the loss of an additive effect of two
normally seeing eyes or from temporary or permanent
loss of acuity in the normal eye.
Temporaryloss of acuity in the normal eye may occur
as a result of pathology, such as a corneal abrasion,
or trauma. This may be the reason why
reduction in unilateral visual acuity precludes
individuals from such professions as the fire
service and armed forces .
The reasoning behind
this may be in that such occupations there
is a risk of trauma to one eye during the course
of dangerous duties which would put the life of
the individual at risk because they would then
be relying on the vision in the amblyopic eye. It
is difficult to comment on whether these risks
are theoretical rather than actual as there is
little information on the subject.



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