Can Lazy Eye Affect Your Athletic Career? Understanding the Risks

A lazy eye, or amblyopia is a vision condition that develops in one eye where it generally does not have a progressively structural trouble with the eyeball. It typically appears in early childhood, usually before age 7, and if untreated may continue to adulthood. Amblyopia happens when the brain starts to favor one eye over the other, which means that the weaker eye gets used less. As a result, their depth perception and coordination can suffer which are essential skills for athletics

In this story, we want to examine what lazy eye can mean for an athlete to their career, the dangers of amblyopia in sports and how vision therapy might be able to mitigate those concerns for athletes.

What is lazy eye and its symptoms?

Amblyopia occurs when the normal visual input to the brain from one eye is disrupted and the brain favors one eye more than the other. The disorder can be produced by different factors that produce it as the strabismus (the misalignment of the eyes), the anisometropia (differences in ether high refractive power of both) or a visual obstruction among which stand out cataracts to name only some). Common symptoms for amblyopia include reduced depth perception, trouble concentrating the eyes together and reduced vision in one of their eyes

This is especially detrimental to competitive sports where fast reactions, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness and accurate fine motor skills are very important. The deficits in judgements of distance, reaction times and balance displayed by athletes with untreated amblyopia could affect their performance in tennis, basketball and soccer

What are the consequences of a lazy eye impact on sports?

Coordination with Depth Perception

For example, simultaneous depth perception is the ability to judge how far away objects might be and when we might need to adjust our movements. For many sportspeople, binocular vision (of both eyes working together for optimal situational awareness) is routinely used to evaluate the play-space in many sporting contexts of which individuals with amblyopia are likely compromised. Because the brain usually blocks input from the weaker eye, athletes who have this type of amblyopia often suffer from problems with depth perception and find it difficult to see in three dimensions. This makes catching a ball, shooting at a target or moving through obstacles particularly challenging

Previous studies have shown that lazy eye impact on athletes have difficulties in sports with a high demand for speed of reaction, fine motor skill and hand-eye coordination. For instance, baseball players need to have an exact mental representation of the speed and angle at which they need to swing their bat to make sure that he properly strikes at the ball that is heading towards them while soccer players must know precisely when short passes should be implemented and delays timed. These situations can be hampered by slower reaction times if suffered from amblyopia which can also lead to misjudgments.

Balance and Spatial Awareness

Besides depth perception, spatial awareness is essential for a lot of sports since it simply determines where one stands with respect to the other objects or players. The visual input necessary for balance and body control can be dramatically reduced with amblyopia; this may lead to problems in sports that require agility and rapid movements (Mitchell, 2003). Athletes with amblyopia have demonstrated decreased balance and reaction times as compared to peers (Stewart, 2011).

In athletics such as gymnastics, figure skating and diving that demand precision and balance, poor vision in both spectacle bases can have a major impact on an athlete’s ability to excel. A lack of spatial awareness can hinder a runner’s ability to maintain her lane or to make sudden corrections during competition, as an example from track and field demonstrates).

Lazy eye vision therapy for athletes

Here are some examples of game-based therapy exercises for athletes with lazy eye;

• Virtual reality sports simulations – These can create an immersive environment that can help with eye training in a slightly similar way to stereographs or auto stereograms.
• Eye tracking games: These are the games that train players on following moving objects with their eyes.
• Visual acuity games: Games involving color or shape matching can help to enhance visual acuity.
• Exercises for binocular vision: Moving objects, as in capturing the ball with both eyes or the engaging in computer games/tasks with a reported involvement of both eyes.

The emotional burden of amblyopia in athletics

Lazy eye can really take a toll on an athlete, not just in terms of physical performance but it can also have psychological effects as well. Between the pressures that come with competing at such high levels and the added struggle of amblyopia, it is easy to see how these athletes could become extremely frustrated or anxious. This burden can often lower the confidence of a person and show in their performance Vision therapy that these effects may improve confidence, as the athlete will see improvements in their play performance with treatment.

Conclusion

Amblyopia (or lazy eye) can affect a career greatly by diminishing depth perception, coordination, balance, spatial awareness etc. Untreated amblyopia may make it difficult for athletes to participate in sports that rely on accurate hand-eye coordination, speed and agility. Through including game-based therapy in their training, athletes with a lazy eye can improve greatly increased visual function and enjoy an edge on their competition. Your optician will be able to establish a test plan following an eye exam and suggest the treatment option that is most suitable for your particular situation.