New, unconventional therapy using video games may help correct lazy eye – or as it is clinically known, amblyopia – in school-age children who usually don’t have much hope of recovery, according to a new study presented yesterday (October 23) at the 115th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Researchers in India worked with 100 children between the ages of ten and 18. The children who took a special supplement called citicoline, which is associated with improved brain function, showed improvements in their weaker eye, but the real success story was found with those children who were assigned to play an hour of video games a day, with their stronger eye covered.
"Playing the shooting games while using just my weaker eye was hard at first, but after a few months I could win all game levels easily," explained 16-year-old patient Saurav Sen to the Daily Mail.
Previously, conventional wisdom was that lazy eye was all but incurable if not caught by the time the child started school.
"We should never give up on our patients, even the older children, but instead offer them hope and treatment designed to help them achieve better vision," insisted head researcher Dr. Somen Ghosh.
Photo credit: Arvind Balaraman/FreeDigitalPhotos.net