7 Tips To Be Successful With Amblyopia Therapy For Your Child!

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All About Amblyopia Eye Patch Therapy

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Today we would like to share 7 tips for successful eye patching with children in treatment for Amblyopia or Lazy Eye.

Occlusion therapy is often more complex than just covering the eye with the eye patch and forgetting about it. The fact that your child wears an eye patch involves many more things.

That’s why we decided to share 7 tips to help us as parents guide our child’s occlusion therapy treatment.

Take Your Time
Positive Reinforcement

Peaceful Surroundings
Be consistent
Keep a journal

Create a reward system
Decorate or create an eye patch

Take Your Time & Be Patient

There are days when our child feels tired, upset, sleepy, or has a bad attitude. Having to wear the eye patch can complicate the situation dramatically on such days. To be successful with Amblyopia therapy for your child it might be a good idea to be patient!

So, take the necessary time to talk to our little one calmly and level with them. Literally, create a situation where you are face-to-face. The best option is to put the eyepatch on when the child is alert and not when they feel exhausted or are barely awake.

Be extra patient when they are wearing the eye patch. Remember that they only see with the amblyopic eye, and their vision and other abilities are reduced. Therefore, doing his routines may take longer than usual.

2. Positive Reinforcement

Another thing that can help to boost your chances for success with the Amblyopia therapy is positive reinforcement! Positive reinforcement while wearing the eye patch will help them to have a more positive attitude toward the situation and toward life itself.

Thanks to our positive reinforcement, our child can feel our pride and will notice our involvement. Your child will feel supported and remain motivated. Remember that the road to recovery can be long, so maintaining a positive attitude is crucial.

3. Peaceful Surroundings

Creating peaceful and pleasant surroundings will make it easier for your child to focus during visual therapy exercises, which can be boring to them. It will also make it easier to put the eyepatch on.

If your child is easily distracted, try to separate it from those distractions (toys, tv,…). Especially while doing eye exercises with the eyepatch.

4. Consistency

Wearing the eye patch and performing visual exercises, as indicated by your eye doctor, are critical ingredients for obtaining the best possible progress.

Therefore, it is advisable to have a daily routine to make it easier to establish consistency in the child’s and family’s life.

5. Keep A Diary

Keeping a diary will allow us to track the activities our child is doing while wearing the patch and quantify the number of hours they have been wearing the eye patch.

It will make it easier to inform the ophthalmologist or optometrist correctly of what has happened in between appointments. It is always easier to remember something when we have it written down.

Keeping a diary will not only allow us to keep track of the progress our child is making daily but also keep us motivated all along the way (both for the child and us as parents).

6. Invent a Reward System

Linked to points 2, 4, and 5, we can invent a reward system to reward our child every day they wear the patch.

We create a reward system that we can hang on the wall or use a notebook. There, we will keep track of our child’s achievements for specific tasks like:

Wearing the patch on the eye x hours a day
Completing Visual therapy exercises

Every day our child fulfills their task, we can put a sticker on that day.

As a family, we can establish what the reward system will look like.

What is the number of stickers that our child must get to earn his reward
What will that reward be

It is important to involve the child in the activity and allow them to stick the sticker in its place daily. This will keep them motivated, conscious, and optimistic about the results.

7. Decorate Or Create The Eye Patch

As a final tip, decorating and/or creating the eye patch can be a super-fun activity for your child. The eye patch is potentially our child’s number 1 enemy, so it is helpful to make them see the eye patch as something attractive and fun.

We can buy a white or brown adhesive patch and decorate it with paint or markers.

Or we can create our own fabric patch, and our child can participate in the choice of fabric and choose the pattern they want on the eye patch.

After all, they will be the ones wearing the eye patch! We hope you find these 7 tips useful!