Diplomacy is ... Children with visual impairment. Doubling in the eyes

In some situations, people have a double vision in the eyes, which is scientifically called diplopia. This pathology is ophthalmic, although it is often not independent, but only acts as one of the signs of another disease. It is very important to correctly determine the cause of diplopia and to conduct treatment in order to save the patient's vision and return to a normal lifestyle.

Mechanism of the disease

Human eyes have a complex structure and a system of perception of surrounding objects, called sight. Speaking abstractly, our vision organs include eyeballs located in the eye sockets and having a cornea, lens, vitreous with membranes, three pairs of differently directed muscles that affect the movement of the eyeballs, and nerve endings that make contact with the brain.

Healthy eyes move synchronously. Nerve endings of each individually for fractions of a second impart impulses from the seen objects to the brain, where the two pictures are reunited into one whole. If there is diplopia, this reunion is absent, because either the synchronization of the movement of the eyeballs, or the process of transmission of information by the eye nerves, or its processing by the brain, is disturbed. As a result, a person sees one object twice, that is, the left and right eye separately. Sometimes both images are the same in clarity, but it happens that one of them is bright, and the other is vague. Some people have remote objects, while others, on the contrary, only have close proximity, or both.

Causes

Pathologies and mechanical effects on the orbit (orbit) and eye muscles lead to the emergence of diplopia. It:

• Inflammatory processes;
• Trauma (parezy);
• Tumors and bruises;
• Congenital pathologies.

Doubling in the eyes can also be due to problems with the eye nerve endings, such as:

• An aneurysm of the carotid artery;
• Mechanical head injuries.

In addition, there are some neurological and infectious diseases affecting the functions of the nerve canals and processes, in which diplopia appears. It:

• Meningitis of tuberculosis etiology;
• Brain tumors;
• Parotitis;
• tetanus;
• diphtheria;
• rubella;
• Severe intoxication with medicines;
• Alcoholic intoxication.

In some people, diplopia occurs with high nervous tension, hysterics, as well as after eye surgery , strabismus, cataracts and retinal detachment.

But that's not all. There are a number of diseases, one of the symptoms of which is double vision. These include:

• diabetes;
• botulism;
• multiple sclerosis;
• Thyrotoxicosis.

Symptoms

The condition, when a person starts to see two instead of one thing, is the brightest sign that the disease has appeared diplopia. Symptoms can also be dizziness, difficulty in orienting the terrain, nervous irritation. When diplopia is secondary, its background becomes the symptoms of the underlying disease. In addition, the nature of the bifurcation can determine whether the eye muscles are affected, and if so, which ones. So, if the pathology touched the straight muscles, the person sees parallel double pictures, and if oblique, then the objects seem to occupy the position one top of the second. Often patients tilt their head toward the muscle that is affected.

There are two types of diplopia. In the binocular in the visual process, both eyes participate, but in one of them the visual axis is shifted, which causes the bifurcation. A symptom or symptom of this type is the restoration of the normal picture when one eye is closed. When monocular, a double image is seen by one eye, as it is projected directly onto two points of the retina.

Children with visual impairment

Visual perception of the world around is the most important condition for the normal development of babies. Therefore, it is extremely important that their eyes "work" correctly. Unfortunately, for every 20 preschool children and 4 students there is one child with visual impairment. Most often this is:

• Short-sightedness (myopia) ;
• strabismus;
• Farsightedness (hypermetropia) ;
• Color blindness;
• Astigmatism (vague vision).

Diplomacy, especially congenital, in infants is rare. More often it is acquired as a result of illness or injury to the eyes and head. Basically, these are bruises in the fall and impacts (for example, a ball or a snowball). As a result, eye sockets are damaged, and in rare cases - eye muscles. If the diplopia was the result of a trauma, the child may have:

• Swelling of the eyelids;
• Exophthalmos (bulging) or enophthalmos (sinking) of eyeballs;
• Displacement or small mobility of eyeballs;
• Chemosis and redness of the conjunctiva;
• Nosebleeds.

Small children with visual impairment (congenital diplopia) are less well-versed in space, can not deftly take a toy into the pens and clearly perform the required actions with it. All this should alert parents and serve as an excuse to call a doctor.

Diagnostics

As a rule, patients (except for the smallest) themselves report about double vision. The doctor should conduct a further examination to determine the cause of the pathology and prescribe treatment. There are several tests. The first is tracking the light source. The doctor directs the flashlight in different directions, and the patient describes the location of bright points (if he sees them two), says when they approach each other, they move away from each other. Based on these answers, it is determined which muscles are affected. The second test is the provocation of bifurcation. The third, the most accurate - co-ordination, carried out with the help of OK-1 ophthalmocoordometer. In addition, during examination, the position of the eyelids, their mobility, the symmetry of the left and right eye, the position and mobility of the eyeballs, the "cover-test", visual acuity, reaction to light and color perception are checked.

Treatment

Having determined the reason for the emergence of diplopia, the treatment is performed either by therapeutic or surgical methods. If double vision in the eyes is not primary, the underlying disease is treated. This often requires hospitalization. In the process of recovery, double vision disappears by itself. If the diplopia occurred due to trauma, surgery by an ophthalmologist can not be ruled out. In cases where bifurcation is caused by problems with the optic nerves, the treatment is carried out together with an ophthalmologist by a neuropathologist, and sometimes by a neurosurgeon. In other cases, the therapy consists of prismatic correction with the help of special glasses and eye exercises, which the patient can carry out independently at home. There are several types, depending on the type of diplopia.