Towards a principled and efficacious approach to the treatment of amblyopia. A review

Abstract

There is currently a diverse array of treatment for amblyopia. In addition to the traditional penalization therapy, which has been used for over 200 years, there are not only more active treatments to recover the monocular visual loss of the amblyopic eye involving both behavioral (visual training) as well as non-invasive brain stimulation but also a variety of methods designed specifically to restore binocular function. Our understanding of visual function in general and of the etiology of the amblyopic loss in particular has progressed a great deal over the last 50 years and it is now time to take a more principled approach to how we treat, when we treat and why we treat.

Keywords: Active treatments; Amblyopia; Binocular dichoptic treatment; Binocular vision restoration; Therapeutic approaches.