This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Near vision activities during occlusion increase visual acuity improvement in amblyopic patients
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
NUSA DUA, Indonesia — Amblyopic patients who perform near vision activities while occluded showed greater visual acuity improvement than those who underwent occlusion alone, a researcher said here.
 Aldiana Halim |
"Near visual activities enhance the effect of occlusion therapy, which results in better improvement of visual acuity than occlusion therapy without near activities," Aldiana Halim, MD, said during the joint meeting of the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Dr. Halim presented a study looking at 60 children aged 4 to 10 years with anisometropic amblyopia; they were randomized to two groups and followed from May to October 2007. The children were all occluded for 2 hours daily for 5 weeks, but one group of 30 was occluded with the expectation of completing near vision activities and the second group of 30 was occluded without near activities. The two groups were analyzed using t-test.
Although visual acuity differences were not significant, the improvement in visual acuity was, with the near visual activities group acuity improving by mean 0.26 logMAR units and the non-near visual activities group improving by 0.19 logMAR units.
Patients were monitored for compliance with calendar fulfillment, weekly phone calls and meetings as well as completion of two pictures in a painting book for the near activities group.