Lazy eye (amblyopia)
- Reviewed by Robert H. Shmerling, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
What is lazy eye?
Lazy eye, also called amblyopia, is an eye problem that can occur in growing children. In the typical child with lazy eye, the right and left eyes have significantly different qualities of vision, so that the images produced by one eye are weak or distorted compared with the images produced by the other eye. Because the weak eye sends poorly focused images to the brain, the brain learns to depend on the stronger eye for its visual information. If this situation is not corrected, the brain eventually chooses to accept images from the stronger eye alone and ignores images from the weak one. In other words, the weak eye doesn't learn to see.
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About the Reviewer
Robert H. Shmerling, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
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