A squint or strabismus or deviation of eye is a condition in which the eyes do not align properly .
One or both eyes may turn inward ,outward ,upward or downward.
This occur usually when the muscle balance or control of the eye is disturbed.
TYPES:
Early diagnosis and treatment is the key to success.
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS:
One of the eyes is not looking straight. It can stay deviated for some time or at times for longer periods or may stay like this for all the time.
squint/deviation of eyes can be present at birth or may develop at any age but mostly starts in early years of life.
Following can be associated.
- Double vision.
- Blurring of vision.
- Poor depth perception.
Double vision mostly occurs when squint is not present by birth and the brain is trained to see a single image from both eyes and then when eyes starts to deviate brain is unable to fuse both images from eyes as single image.
LAZY EYE:
It occurs when eye stay deviated for long times in children and as a result brain starts to ignore the blurred image from one eye ,thus even when the eye becomes straight ,vision still stays blurry from that eye.
So early diagnosis and treatment of this condition is very important.
CAUSES:
Strabismus or eye deviation can be due to
- congenital, present at birth.
- hereditary, running in families, with a genetic link.
- due to some illness .
- due to a lesion in a cranial nerve.
It can be due to refractive error like,
- Myopia, or short-sightedness.
- Hypermetropia, or long-sightedness.
- Astigmatism, where the cornea is not curved properly.
DIAGNOSIS:
The American Optometric Association insists starting eye tests at 6 months age, may be earlier if the child has a eye deviation present at birth.
Normally if squint or eye deviation is present the patient will be sent to the ophthalmologist who will then perform few tests ,which may include the use eye drops that dilate the pupils and then the test is done.
Hirschberg eye test is done to observes where the light reflects from the corneas.
TREATMENT:
Early treatment is always helpful and mandatory. The younger the patient the better the treatment results are.
Eye Patch:
Needed to treat the lazy eye and is worn on the good eye to make brain work with the lazy eye.
Glasses:
In early or small squint/deviation of eyes glasses are very helpful to correct the problem.
Botox injection to effected musclemay help in few cases.
Exercises:
Pencil pushups are helpful.
Two sets of 20 “push-ups” each day for 12 weeks are helpful according to one study.
Surgery:
Squint surgery is needed when it is persistent ,large angle or effecting vision and is not responding to the other treatment options.
Squint surgery is performed on the ocular muscles and adjustment is done to balance the movement of eyes.