Amplyopia is a kind of eye disease which seriously affects the visual quality. The survey indicates that the rate for children to suffer from amplyopia is 2% to 4%. It has a great impact on the children’s healthy growth. Some parents often mislead their children to wear eyeglasses, which delay the treatment to the children. This mainly lies in the following three myths:
Myth 1: Postpone the children’s wearing glasses
Some parents don’t want their children to wear glasses too early, but amplyopia is caused by the dysplasia of optic nerve of which the critical developing period is from 3 to 5 years old, therefore amplyopia should be cured as early as possible. In theory, the vision and all visual functions of the 8-year-old children will be the same as that of the adults; but in clinic, it is found that children who are above 3 years old have the normal vision. That is to say, if a 3-year-old child is found to have ametropia which affects the eyesight, his parents should fill a prescription to correct it for him. Don’t miss the optimum correcting period of the children because of your misunderstanding.
Myth 2: Take on and off the eyeglasses frequently
This is an issue that most of the parents concern because they deem that the development of their children’s eyes will be affected due to long time wearing. But on the contrary, for children who have suffered amplyopia, wearing eyeglasses all the time in itself is curing the amplyopia. If they take on and off the glasses frequently the treatment effect will be influenced.
Myth 3: Stop the children wearing glasses and training
This is also one of the mistakes that the parents often make. The standard indicating the amplyopia is healed is the binocular visual acuity reach up to 0.9 and the binocular vision and stereo visual function are good; moreover, the vision should not be lost during continuous 3 years’ follow-up vision. Many parents and even some nonprofessional doctors don’t train their children’s binocular and stearo visual functions after their children’s vision is improved to the normal level, this is so to speak falling short of success for lack of a final effort.
If you have a child whose amplyopia is being treated, please do not step into the above myths.