Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: To investigate the effect and compliance of patching the good eye of children diagnosed with amblyopia by objectively monitoring occlusion and to establish whether there is a correlation between effective treatment and improvement of visual function. Methods: Twenty-three newly detected strabismic amblyopic children aged bewteen 3-8 years (mean age 4.05 years) were randomly devided into three groups, with a prescription of 6 hours (n=8), 3 hours (n=7) and 0 hours (n=7) occlusion per day. Patching was monitored with a thermo-sensitive occlusion dose monitor and the patients were monitored for 3 months. Parents were asked to record a daily diary of patching hours. Patients were assessed every 3 weeks with logMAR visual acuity. Results: The mean ODM and diary times from individual subjects were closely matched. In the 6-hour group both the average ODM and diary time was 4.1 hours. In the 3-hour group the average ODM time was 2.1 hours and the diary time was 2.2 hours. Compliance to the original prescribed patching time was far more variable. The mean increase in visual acuity was 3.8 logMAR lines for 6 hours patching, 1.7 for 3 hours and 1.7 for the 0 hour group. The mean increase in visual acuity was significantluy better for 6 hour patching compared to 3 hour patching (P<0.05). Conclusions:This study has shown that there is a problem with compliance to patching therapy. We showed that 6 hours occlusion was more effective than 3 hours occlusion. However, there was little difference between the 3 hours patching and no hour patching.
Keywords: amblyopia • visual acuity • strabismus