Treatment of strabismus in children

A child is born with farsightedness, and by the age of three, with normal development, it should decrease, but this is not always the case. Therefore, strabismus most often occurs in the first three years of a baby's life. With this pathology, the eyeball lags behind in growth, while the nervous and muscular apparatus develops at a normal pace, and as a result, farsightedness does not disappear by the age of three. In order for the image to focus correctly, the eye tries to find a place on the retina from which the image of objects will be better, therefore, with farsightedness, strabismus converges to the center, and with myopia - vice versa.

Many parents consider children's strabismus only as a cosmetic defect, however, if treatment is not carried out on time, the center of the brain responsible for receiving and processing the received visual information, due to distorted information from the eye, stops working correctly. This condition is called amblyopia.

Correction of strabismus in children consists in prescribing eyeglass correction and increasing visual load. It has been scientifically proven that the use of glasses and special computer programs improves vision in farsightedness and corrects strabismus. 

At 5-7 years of age, the second stage of eyeball growth occurs, during which time vision can recover as a result of correcting farsightedness with glasses and proper eye strain. It is possible to achieve 100% vision and correct strabismus. 

Types of strabismus:

• Friendly (refractive error) and paralytic (violation of the neuromuscular component of the movement of the eyeball).
• Convergent and divergent.
• One-sided, alternating.
• Permanent and non-permanent.
• Accommodative (disappears when wearing glasses), partially accommodative (does not completely disappear when wearing glasses), non-accommodative (does not adjust with glasses).
• With and without amblyopia.
• With a vertical component.
• Secondary strabismus.

The EMC Children's Clinic offers a full range of techniques for the diagnosis of strabismus of any kind.

Strabismus treatment

According to the results of the examination, the ophthalmologist prescribes treatment. This can be a point correction, pleoptic or orthoptic treatment.

The EMC Children's Clinic has a modern hardware and software package for the diagnosis and treatment of visual impairments (Eye-Training). The Eye-training program is a program aimed at training "lazy" amblyopic eyes and improving visual acuity, which the doctor conducts in a playful way. Thanks to this technique, the balance of visual images between the eyes is restored in strabismus, the stability of fixation is increased, and deep vision is trained. 

If necessary, surgical treatment is performed. In the Children's Clinic, preference is given to low-trauma methods that minimize complications and allow the patient to recover quickly after surgery. 

The clinic uses a method of treating strabismus – injections of botulinum toxin into the eye muscle. 

Advantages of EMC

Highly qualified ophthalmologists specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of this pathology in children.

• Expert-level diagnostics.
• Minimally traumatic surgical treatment that ensures minimal recovery time. A small patient spends less than 6-8 hours in the hospital, while the standard length of stay in hospitals in urban clinics is 5 days.
• Multidisciplinary approach to treatment in collaboration with doctors of other specialties (neurologists, otorhinolaryngologists, immunologists, allergologists, anesthesiologists, etc.) within the framework of a single blade.
• High-quality anesthetic supplies, safe drugs for children.

Prevention

Regular and timely checkups with an ophthalmologist between the ages of 0-3 years. It is necessary to visit an ophthalmologist at the age of:

• from birth to 1 month;
• from 3 to 6 months;
• at 12 months;
• at 18 months;
• at 24 months;
• at the age of 3. 

If the prerequisites for the development of the disease are identified in a timely manner, the appearance of strabismus can be prevented with the help of eyeglass correction.