What do ORTHOPTISTS do?

Orthoptists are concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of ocular motility and problems relating to vision. Some examples of these problems are:

• Amblyopia (lazy eye), which is a reduction in vision arising from a defect present in infancy or early childhood that prevents the eye from receiving adequate visual stimulation.

• Defective binocular vision, which is the inability to use the two eyes together in the correct way and which leads to impairment of depth perception.

• Abnormal eye movements arising from injury or disease affecting the eye muscles or the nerve supplying the muscles, or a physical obstruction to eye movement.

• Diplopia (double vision) resulting from abnormal eye movements or strabismus (squint).