The quality of our vision depends greatly on the capacity of our eyes to work together, in fact our brain receives visual information from both eyes and combines the visual information giving us a wider visual field and the many other advantages of binocular vision.

Binocular vision is considerably superior to monocular vision, it allows a stereoscopic perception of our visual environment, allowing us to evaluate distances, and to follow moving objects more precisely. Efficient binocular vision is controlled by a complicated neuro-muscular physiological system. This complex system allows our eyes to fixate objects in all positions of our visual field, while maintaining the parallelism and alignment of our eyes.

Strabismus consists in a difficulty to maintain synchronized alignment between our eyes in one or all positions of fixation.

Dr. Abbondanza has been performing innovative surgery for strabismus for over 30 years, becoming one of the most experienced surgeons in this field.

Strabismus may be present in various ages , and various causes may be recognized. Strabismus that occurs in children can be caused by an imbalance of the muscles that normally control the movements of the eye. A weakness or excessive function of a muscle may both, in fact, determine ocular deviation by creating a deficiency of motility in one or more directions of fixation. In other cases, strabismus is caused by a visual disorder of the eye such as non corrected hyperopia.
As soon as a strabismus is suspected, a complete ophthalmologic examination must be performed. It is often easier to correct an ocular deviation in early stages, if not corrected an important visual deficiency known as amblyopia may result.
Amblyopia consists in a monocular reduction of visual performance of the deviated eye that cannot be corrected immediately, and usually the patient must undergo a procedure of visual rehabilitation known as visual occlusion therapy for a variable period of time.
Occlusion therapy must be performed by an ophthalmologist only, following precise evaluation of the child’s visual performance and the prescription of optical correction as necessary .Practically, one eye is covered using a small patch for a number of hours per day according to a treatment schedule. The ophthalmologist may require the application of an adhesive patch directly covering the eye at first, in some mild cases of amblyopia, the ophthalmologist may decide to apply the patch directly on the patients spectacles.

During occlusion therapy it is important to check the vision of both eyes at regular intervals and consequently modify the quantity of occlusive therapy or of the optical correction, if necessary.
In a considerable number of cases, an ophthalmologic examination and the prescription of spectacles can treat strabismus adequately. In other cases a surgical procedure may be necessary, but in all cases, it is important to plan a regular ophthalmologic follow-up and perform periodic ophthalmologic examinations. Strabismus that occurs for the first time in adults is frequently secondary to other diseases and may often produce various degrees of double vision,or diplopia, in one or more ocular positions. Diplopia may occur because the fully developed visual system of the adult eye cannot efficiently suppress the visual stimuli of the deviated eye. For these reasons, amblyopia, which is a form of monocular visual suppression, does not appear in strabismus of adults.

Adults presenting strabismus, with or without diplopia, should always undergo a complete ophthalmologic examination aiming to determine the cause of the strabismus.

In conclusion, medical and surgical procedures for the treatment of strabismus are readily available and can be extremely effective, but must be performed following determination of the cause of the strabismus and following careful clinical functional evaluation of the individual patient.