Eye and Vision Care

Is there any hope to help my daughters vision

05/05/2008 09:28PM

Question:

My daughter is 12 and she has always had this eye condition. When she looks straight forward her eyes jerk from right to left very fast. So in order to focus on an object she turns her head all the way to the right. This slows the jerking to give her a chance to focus better. What is this called? What can be done to correct this?

Answer:

The condition that you describe is call nystagmus. In addition to the head turning that your daughter uses to decrease the eye movement and improve her vision, it may be possible to further decrease the nystagmus with eyeglasses or surgical intervention.

I recommend strongly that you schedule an examination for your daughter with an eye doctor who has experience with patients who have nystagmus, treatment of binocular vision disorders, and/or treatment of patients who are partially sighted. Further, our own Binocular Vision or Vision Rehabilitation Services at the College of Optometry here at Ohio State have experience in treating children with nystagmus.

Best wishes for every success in further improvement of your daughter's vision disorder.

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Response by:

Paulette P. Schmidt, OD, MS
Associate Professor of Optometry
College of Optometry
The Ohio State University