Lazy Eye Medical Terms and their Common Names

Accommodative Esotropia - an inward deviation of one or both eyes due to high hyperopic (far-sighted) refractive error and excessive accommodation

Amblyopia Image

Amblyopia - Amblyopia is the medical term for Lazy Eye. Amblyopia is vision loss in one or both eyes due to non-organic disease (also called an amblyogenic factor) such as unequal refractive error, eye turn (strabismus/tropia/squint), deprivation, or a combination of these.

Convergence Insufficiency - the inability to maintain a converged eye position for an extended period of time; often due to a high exophoric eye posture at near; may be associated with intermittent exotropia

Diplopia - double vision

Esophoria - inward deviation of the eye; only visible during eye posture testing/breaking fusion; may break down to esotropia at times

Esotropia - inward deviation of the eye; often a visible inward deviation

Exophoria - outward deviation of the eye; only visible during eye posture testing/breaking fusion; may break down to exotropia at times

Exotropia - outward deviation of the eye; often a visible outward deviation

Lazy Eye - commonly used term for an amblyopic or strabismic eye

Penalization Therapy - use of an eye patch (patching therapy) or atropine eye drops (atropine therapy) over/in the better-seeing eye; the goal of this method of treatment is to force the patient to use the weaker eye

Refractive Amblyopia - amblyopia due to an unequal refractive error between the eyes

Refractive Error - the correction (using lenses) needed to correct a patient's vision and place a clear image on each retina

Squint - alternate term for strabismus; see also TROPIA and STRABISMUS

Strabismus - visible eye turn; may be inward, outward, upward, or downward; see also SQUINT, TROPIA, and LAZY EYE

Toxic Amblyopia - vision loss that mimics amblyopia but is due to damage from a toxic substance; the result is damage to the optic nerve and papillomacular bundle of ganglion cells (central vision), which is often not reversible; may be due to tobacco use (cyanide), alcohol (B12 deficiency), drugs (most concerning are chloramphenicol, digozin, isoniazid, ethambutol), or other toxins (most concerning are lead, methanol, ethylene glycol)

Tropia - deviation of one or both eyes; this is a general term an often is combined with a directional component such as exotropia (outward deviation of an eye), esotropia (inward deviation of an eye), hypertropia (upward deviation of an eye), or hypotropia (downward deviation of an eye),

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