Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 02/17/2009
Depth perception (stereopsis) in humans develops around the age of three months. For successful development of binocular vision and the ability to perceive three-dimensionally, eye muscle surgery should not be postponed past the age of four years....
The earlier the surgery, the better the outcome, so an early diagnosis is important. Surgery may even be performed before the child is two years old.
Patients (or their caregivers) should make sure their doctors are aware of any medications that they are taking, even over-the-counter medications. Patients should not take aspirin, or any other blood-thinning medications for 10 days prior to surgery, and should not eat or drink after midnight the night before.
Advertisement
Search
Other Information
Definition
Eye muscle surgery is surgery to weaken, strengthen, or reposition any of the muscles that move the eyeball (the extraocular muscles).
Purpose
The purpose of eye muscle surgery is generally to align the pair of eyes so that they gaze in the same direction and move together as a team, either to improve appearance or to aid in the development of binocular vision in a young child. To achieve binocular vision, the goal is to align the eyes so that the location of the image on the retina of one eye corresponds to the location of the image on the retina of the other eye.
In addition, sometimes eye muscle surgery can help people with other eye disorders (nystagmus and Duane syndrome, for example).
Other Information
Approximately 56% of all patients achieve results of 20/20 or better and over 90% achieve 20/40 or better (which is good enough to drive without corrective lenses in most regions).1 Those with moderate to high myopia (greater than 7 diopters) have a lesser chance of achieving that result. As technique and technology improve, the results continue to improve.
From: Eye Surgery Education Council
Find a Qualified Specialist
Looking for a specialist?
Please enter your zip code.