CURRENT PROTOCOLS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF AMBLYOPIA IN CHILDREN

Abstract

Amblyopia is a visual disorder with a higher incidence in children, treatment difficulties are due to advancing age and the belief that visual plasticity tends to decrease. The objective of this study is to investigate treatment conditions for amblyopic children, through the classification of amblyopia, identification of existing protocols for pediatric patients and evaluation of current treatments developed. As a methodology, a meta-analysis was developed, with a review of studies from 2018-2022, written in Portuguese, English and Spanish that dealt with amblyopia, neural plasticity and treatment protocol. Envisioning the treatment for amblyopia, the studies are still incipient, because it was possible to contemplate a minimal sample of literatures, mostly studies using similar objectives. In view of the findings, occlusion therapy, brain stimulation therapies, receptive learning or interventions of different therapies were observed as promising treatment for amblyopia, because individually or correlatedly enable binocular strengthening and recovery and stereopsy, leading to reduced amblyopia and improved visual acuity.  The existence of brain plasticity leads to recognize that treatment protocols for pediatric amblyopias can continue to be developed, because in view of the support of new mixed protocols can and should be a guideline for visual health professionals with approaches that consider the particularities of the diagnosis and degrees of severity, so that there are appropriate interventions.