Strabismus is a common condition, especially in children. This is a disease that affects aesthetics. When detecting signs of strabismus, if you take your child to see a doctor and get treatment early, the chance of recovery will be higher.

1. How to recognize strabismus

Stabismus is a common disease in children, and can also occur in adults. The disease can be inherited in the family, however, many patients with strabismus do not have a family history of strabismus.

– Inner strabismus: Inner strabismus means the eyes look inward, which is a common form in infants. Children with inner strabismus cannot see with both eyes at the same time. Accommodational strabismus is the most common type of strabismus, occurring in children, usually 2 years old or older. With this type of strabismus, when the child focuses both eyes to see clearly, both eyes will look inward. This movement of gaze can occur when focusing on objects at a distance, near, or both.

– External strabismus means the eyes look outward, which is another form of strabismus. It often appears when the child focuses on objects at a distance. Strabismus can occur only occasionally, especially when the child is drowsy, weak or tired. Parents often observe their children squinting when looking at objects in sunlight.

To determine whether the child has strabismus or not, parents can carefully observe the child to see if the child has symptoms such as:

• The child often squints when looking or has to squint at objects placed right in front.
• When standing opposite and looking at the child, if the child’s eyes appear to be asymmetrical when looking at you, it is very likely that the child has strabismus.
• Give the child any toy that the child likes, observe carefully to see if the child’s eyes are squinted to one side when the child looks intently at the toy.
• Use your hand to cover one of the child’s eyes and do the same with the other eye, observe to see if the child’s pupils move normally when you remove your hand.
• Instruct and let the child line up two pencils vertically, if this causes difficulty for the child, the child’s eyes are having problems.

Strabismus is a treatable disease.

2. Can strabismus be treated?

Strabismus can be treated, children can undergo surgery and achieve good treatment results. However, the indication for strabismus surgery early or late depends on the level of damage to the visual function of both eyes and the type of strabismus. In Vietnam, surgery for children is performed at the earliest from 18 to 22 months old at a medical facility with an ophthalmology department and full anesthesia and resuscitation facilities.

Strabismus surgery does not affect the patient’s previous vision. Complications from strabismus surgery may include hematoma causing red eyes, swelling of the conjunctiva (white of the eye) or eyelids. These complications can be treated without leaving any sequelae.

Therefore, it is necessary to consider before deciding. First, strabismus surgery can only be performed when the child is 2 years old or older, at which time the eye muscles are stable. In cases of strabismus where the pupil turns outward, the surgery time is slower. Other treatment methods should be tried. If they are not effective, surgery should be performed when the child is 4-5 years old.

Surgery can completely cure strabismus, however, children need to be treated at the right time. If congenital strabismus persists into adulthood, surgical treatment may not be effective, due to difficulty adjusting the optic nerve as well as other eye defects that are difficult to treat.

The best age to check, detect and treat strabismus is preschool age, from 2 to 6 years old. Because the results of visual rehabilitation depend on early or late intervention. The younger the child is when treatment begins, the easier it is to recover. If treated before 3 – 4 years old, the result will be 92%, 6 – 8 years old is 62% and over 10 years old is only 18%.

The effectiveness of treatment depends on how long the strabismus has been present, the longer the disease has become a chronic disease, the more difficult it is to recover. Depending on the type of fixation, that is, the nature of the disease, also greatly affects the results of strabismus treatment.

If strabismus occurs in children who are in the visual development stage, it will cause poor vision development.

3. Strabismus treatment methods

Depending on each case of strabismus, one or a combination of the following methods will be applied:

+ Convergence training, glancing training in the opposite direction of strabismus.

+ Wearing glasses when strabismus is caused by accommodation convergence or refractive error.

+ Covering the eyes when strabismus is amblyopic.

+ Surgery: Adjusting the ocular muscles to bring the two eyes straight.

Strabismus can be completely treated. However, the level of recovery and treatment goals for each patient are different, depending on the cause, age, and duration of strabismus. For ophthalmology, the main goal of strabismus treatment is to have the best binocular vision, helping patients see 3D images and have convenience in life, activities, study, work, etc.

For children, the ability to regain vision is higher than that of the elderly and the best recovery level is in children under 3 years old. Therefore, when parents discover that their child has strabismus, they should take the child to a specialist for advice and treatment as soon as possible.

Strabismus is completely treatable, when children have surgery will achieve good treatment results.

In summary: Children with strabismus do not only affect aesthetics. If strabismus occurs in children in the visual development stage, it will cause poor vision development, possibly causing amblyopia and loss of the ability to see with both eyes, thus affecting life as well as not being able to do some jobs that require good binocular vision.

Therefore, when children are born, they need to be observed. If you see that the child is looking sideways, looking up, or looking unbalanced, you need to take the child to see a doctor immediately. Recognizing strabismus is not difficult, the main thing is that the child needs to receive the attention of parents, avoiding unfortunate cases of blindness.