Pasco Eye Institute

The eyes of young children will not develop correctly unless vision is good. Sometimes, the vision in one eye is much worse than the vision in the other eye. When this happens, the brain will start to "ignore" the eye with worse vision. This actually makes the vision in that eye even worse. This condition is called amblyopia. It is often referred to as "lazy eye". Amblyopia is a dangerous condition. If it is not treated at a young age, an eye with amblyopia eventually can develop severely diminished vision.

Why Do Children Get Amblyopia?

Some children cannot see well in one eye because there is something that blocks light from getting through. More often, however, amblyopia happens because one eye has much better focus than the other. For example, one eye might be very nearsighted. Objects that are far away will look very blurry to this eye. If the other eye is not nearsighted, the same far-away objects will be focused clearly by that eye.

Another cause of amblyopia is crossed-eyes or eyes that do not work together. This problem, called strabismus, can cause double vision. In order to avoid this double vision, the brain might start to ignore the image from one eye, which also causes the vision to deteriorate.

The important thing to remember is that amblyopia often starts before there is any obvious sign that something is wrong. This is why babies and young children need to have their eyes checked at regularly scheduled appointments with the doctor.

See the Treatment area of our site to learn how Amblyopia is corrected.