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Strabismus Essays

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Strabismus

A camera lens focuses patterns of light onto film which records the image exactly. If the lens is out of focus or partially covered, a b lurry or obscured picture will result. The film is a recording device, it does not interpret and select what it portrays. Images from a camera are objective in a very literal sense. Seeing, however, is not such a seamless process. Our eyes work similarly to a camera in that they have a lens which focuses a real image on our retina, a light sensitive sheet of cells. This retinal image is a portrayal of the world as it truly is. The image which we see, however, is not this image. By considering a normal vis ual property as well as an uncommon ocular disorder the process of formulating our …show more content…

As defined by the American Academy of Ophthalmology (2) strabismus is a visual defect in which the eyes are misaligned and point in different directions. One eye may look straight ahead, whil e the other eye turns inward, outward, upward, or downward. You may always notice the misalignment, or it may come and go. A second disorder, amblyopia, commonly goes along with strabismus. Again, from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Amblyopia is p oor vision in an eye that did not develop normal sight during early childhood. It is sometimes called lazy eye. (7) The reason these two conditions are so closely linked relates to how the brain interprets the information received from th e two separate eyes.

One cause of strabismus is the inadequate coordination of the six muscles which operate to move the eye. Other less common forms of strabismus result from defective refraction, damaged nerves which connect the photoreceptors to the brain, and damage to the nerves which control the eye muscles.(4) These multiple disorders all have the same effect, presenting conflicting, amblyopic, images to the brain.

Normal vision occurs by a coordinated synthesis of the retinal images into a single brain image. If, however, one of the eyes does not transmit a coordinated or useful image the brain may choose to ignore this image when conducting its synthesis. The region of the

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