Strabismus is a disorder of the coordinated functioning of the eye muscles. Strabismus is not often congenital, usually developing between the ages of two and three. In case of untimely detection of the onset of disorders, complete strabismus develops.

The causes of strabismus can be craniocerebral trauma, brain pathology, mental illness. In medical practice, there are many cases when severe fright became the cause of strabismus in a child.

Indirect causes of strabismus are all kinds of infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever or the flu. In some cases, a disorder in the coordinated work of the eye muscles occurs with severe myopia, hyperopia, or astigmatism. All these factors lead to the fact that the normal development of visual function and eyes in the early years of childhood development is upset.

The disorder in the coordination of the eye muscles leads to a deviation of one axis of vision from a single starting point. In other words, healthy eyes work symmetrically, and the visual axes of both eyes are concentrated in one point – on the object in question. If a person has strabismus, the axes of vision are not able to connect. This means that the patient’s binocular vision is disturbed. Binocular vision is vision with both eyes in such a way that the idea of ​​an object in each eye is combined in the cerebral cortex into one clear picture.

In other words, if vision is normal, then the brain receives pictures from each eye, which it layers one on top of the other and creates an image of a visible object. With the development of strabismus due to a disorder of binocular vision, the eyes are not able to transmit “adequate” images to the brain. Inadequate work of any one or more of the eye muscles leads to incorrect positioning of the eyeballs. For this reason, there is a violation of the vision of one object by each eye.

According to statistics, more than five percent of children suffer from strabismus. This figure assumes those children whose development of strabismus was not established in a timely manner. Nevertheless, this type of disease can be cured, since strabismus is treatable until the age of twenty-five, when the formation of the organs of vision is completed. 

Timely detection of the problem is the key to a quick and effective treatment of strabismus.

The danger of developing the disease is that children, as a rule, quickly adapt to impaired vision. A child with developing strabismus perceives two pictures of an object, and the brain is not able to superimpose one on the other – double vision occurs. Of course, the brain adapts over time, that is, it does not take into account one image, operating on another. If this process of adaptation is not suppressed in a timely manner, then a phenomenon called the lazy eye develops, when the slanting eye completely ceases to see. With such a pathology, treatment is almost impossible.

In addition to visual impairment, with strabismus, a child develops a chronic tilt of the head to one side. This is due to the fact that the child is trying to eliminate the double picture.

Due to the fact that the child cannot himself realize that the split image is not considered the norm, no complaints are received from him. In this regard, all responsibility is transferred to the parents, who must carefully monitor the child and his movements. If you suspect developing strabismus, it is urgent to show it to an ophthalmologist. The first signs of strabismus may include tilting the head, squinting, and pinching one eye in the middle.