Strabismus

Disorders of the Eye

Strabismus - e.g. cross-eye and more

The term strabismus is used to describe the condition in which the eyes do not move together in a coordinated fashion. This is usually because one of the eyes' muscles are weak. Cross-eye (a.k.a. esotropia), the condition where one eye looks straight ahead while the other moves towards the nose, is just one particular form of strabismus. Other forms include exotropia, hypertropia, and hypotropia. With exotropia (a.k.a. wall-eye), one eye wanders outwards to the side of the head. People with hypertropia have one eye turned upwards. Hypotropic people have one eye that turns downward.

If this condition is not treated, strabismus may also lead to amblyopia, or "lazy eye", another condition in which the child loses some or all vision from the weak eye.

Causes:

Strabismus can be inherited, caused by an injury, or caused by illness. It commonly shows up in severely farsighted young children. It may also occur because the vision through one eye is much worse than the other.

Correction:

A patch may be placed over the stronger eye, forcing the weak eye to do all the seeing for a certain period of time. This is to strengthen the weaker eye, so that the eyes work together better. Another way to force the weak eye to be used for seeing involves using eye drops which blur the vision in the good eye. Glasses may also be prescribed. In other cases, an eye doctor may reccommend surgery in conjunction with eye exercises to coordinate the patient's eye movements.