According to a report in this Months “British Journal of Ophthalmology” that in research on 57 children with “lazy eye” found that parents needed to be better educated as to the benefits of occlusion therapy, where a patch is worn over the normal eye to encourage use of the “lazy eye”. The report goes on to say that 54% of parents were said to be lax about the treatment because they did not fully understand the importance of the occlusion therapy in preventing permanent vision problems.

Almost 7 out of 10 (68%) of the parents involved in the study blamed poor knowledge for failing to keep their children on the therapy. The report goes on to say that it is essential that Parents should be better advised as to the benefits of the therapy when their children are first placed on to a course of occlusion therapy.      # SEPTEMBER 2000