Loss of alignment of the visual axes or strabismus

The doctor. Solana, specialist of the ophthalmological clinic Oftalvist, explains what is the strabismus, pathology that affects the alignment of the eyes.

We could define the strabismus as the loss of alignment of the visual axes, either in all the visual directions or in any of them. Its consequences depend on several factors, some of them are the age of onset of strabismus and the characteristics of it. All the cases have in common a more or less manifest aesthetic alteration, but that is not the most important thing; what is really important are the visual alterations. Some of these are the loss or lack of development of binocularity and stereopsis (relief vision) and the possible appearance of an amblyopia ( lazy eye ) in the strabismus of onset below 8 years.

The treatment should be aimed, firstly, at minimizing or preventing visual alterations of binocularity and at rehabilitating amblyopia with different techniques of penalization and optical treatment.. We will treat the motor alteration with surgery or with botulinum toxin in certain selected cases.

We will resort to surgery when the motor and visual commitment can not be controlled by optical means, evaluating in each case what can be achieved with surgery: aesthetic and visual healing, aesthetic correction, partial aesthetic correction, functional improvements (control of a torticollis or of a nystagmus ).

Surgical techniques consist of modifying the insertion of the oculomotor muscles, their length, their route or their power, adapting them to the characteristics of each case.

However, we must know when we should not surgically treat a strabismus. This will be the case when, for example, there is a high probability of diplopia ( double vision ) with aesthetic correction.