Inverse Occlusion: A Binocularly Motivated Treatment for Amblyopia

Figure 4

Visual outcomes after two months of occlusion of the amblyopic eye for 2 hours/day. Eighteen amblyopes (S1 to S18; 10 to 35 years old), with () or without () strabismus, participated. For patients who required refractive correction or whose refractive correction needed updating (), a 2-month period of refractive adaptation was provided before the inverse occlusion. (a) Binocular balance was measured with the binocular phase combination task and expressed as the interocular contrast ratio (amblyopic eye/fellow eye) when the two eyes are balanced. The binocular balance increased from to (). : , , 2-tailed related samples Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. Error bars represent standard errors. Data falling in the shaded area indicate patients whose two eyes were more balanced; data falling on the sloping line represent no change. (b) Visual acuity was measured with a Tumbling E acuity chart in logMAR units. The visual acuity improved from to (), effect size: Cohen’s . : , , 2-tailed paired samples -test. Error bars represent standard errors. Data falling in the shaded area represents better visual acuity; data falling on the sloping line represent no change. Jitter points were used to avoid superimposing points. The blue line indicates a 0.13 logMAR visual acuity improvement (effect size: ) observed from a recent cohort study from the PEDIG group based on 2 hours daily of classical patching treatment for 16 weeks in children aged 13 to 16 years old with amblyopia [40]. (c) Stereoacuity was measured with the Random-dot stereograms. Stereoacuity of 1200 arc secs was assigned for patients (13/18) whose stereoacuity was too bad to be measured. The stereoacuity improved from to (). : , , 2-tailed related samples Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. Error bars represent standard errors. Data falling in the shaded area represents better stereopsis; data falling on the sloping line represent no change. Jitter points were used to avoid superimposing points.

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