Research Supports Extended Eye Patching for Childhood Amblyopia
October 2013 — Increasing eye patching from two hours to six hours a day effectively treats persistent childhood amblyopia, according to a Pediatric Eye Disease Investigators Group (PEDIG) study published in the journalOphthalmology.
Eye Patching is the standard treatment for amblyopia, according to the National Eye Institute, which funded the research. Eye care practitioners often increase the daily duration if children stop making progress.
Researchers enrolled 169 children between ages 3 and 8 with persistent childhood amblyopia in the study. One treatment group continued with two hours of daily eye patching, and another increased daily patching to six hours.
After 10 weeks, children in the six-hour patching group could see an average of 1.2 additional lines on an eye chart with the affected eye. Children in the two-hour patching group improved on average only 0.5 lines. Perhaps even more compelling, 40 percent of children in the six-hour group saw two or more lines of improvement.
The report proposes an evidence-based, staged approach for treating amblyopia:
- The first stage is wearing eyeglasses, to correct vision as much as possible.
- Patching for two hours a day — or using eye drops or lens filters that blur vision in the better eye — is recommended if amblyopia persists after 10 weeks of wearing glasses.
- If amblyopia persists after 10 weeks with two-hour daily patching, PEDIG recommends children patch for six hours per day.
Once children reach maximum visual acuity, the report recommends monitoring them for recurrence.
For more information on Amblyopia see our Children’s Vision page and visit All About Vision’s webpage.
