Is occlusion therapy effective in correcting vision?

Q: My 8.5 years old son has been complaining of blurred vision. It was found that he had different numbers in both the eyes and the right eye had a poorer vision. He was prescribed glasses and occlusion therapy. How effective is this at his age?

A:This is called amblyopia or lazy eye. It is caused by unequal lens power requirement in the two eyes as a result of which brain suppresses the hazy vision from worse of the two eyes. If not corrected soon ideally before 6 years of age the eye goes lazy, but there is a hope that if occlusion therapy is done properly, the vision can improve till 11 years of age. Make sure the good eye is covered for 3-4 hrs a day specially when the bad eye is being forced to look at books or TV, computer, etc. with glass correction.