Waking up that lazy eye
By Nathan Seppa
In amblyopia—”lazy eye”—the brain prefers images from one eye over the other. Most doctors treat the condition in children by patching the good eye for part of each day, but assume that the practice doesn’t work past age 10. Some doctors give up on patching at age 7.
A U.S.-Canadian study now finds that children up to age 17 can make significant gains in vision by wearing a patch.
Researchers identified 507 children with amblyopia and randomly assigned half of them to wear a patch from 2 to 6 hours a day for 24 weeks. If needed, the kids also received prescriptions for eyeglasses. All the children were between 7 and 17 years old.