Strabismus
You're watching a preview. 300,000+ students are watching the full lesson.
Included In This Lesson
Study Tools For Strabismus
NURSING.com students have a 99.25% NCLEX pass rate.
Outline
Overview
- Lack of coordination between extraocular muscles resulting in inability to direct both eyes at the same point. Often referred to as “cross-eyed”.
Nursing Points
General
- Normal finding in infant but should not be present after 4 months of life.
- Treatment should occur as early as possible to avoid lifelong visual problems.
Assessment
- Eyes crossed
- Poor depth perception
- Squinting of eyes and tilting of head
- Binocular vision is lost without treatment
Therapeutic Management
- Eyeglasses
- Vision therapy
- Surgery
- Combination therapy:
- Wearing an eye patch on the good eye will help strengthen the weak eye.
Nursing Concepts
- Sensory Perception
Patient Education
- Eye patch should be worn on the good eye
Unlock the Complete Study System
Used by 300,000+ nursing students. 99.25% NCLEX pass rate.
- Full lesson outlines
- NCLEX simulator (SIMCLEX)
- 6,500+ practice questions
- 2,000+ lesson videos
- 300+ cheatsheets
200% NCLEX Pass Guarantee.
No Contract. Cancel Anytime.
ADPIE Related Lessons
Related Nursing Process (ADPIE) Lessons for Strabismus
Transcript
Hey guys, in this lesson we are going to talk about strabismus or what is often referred to as being “cross eyed” .
When a person or child has strabismus there is a lack of coordination between the muscles around the eyes. This results in the child not being able to focus both eyes on the same object at the same time. This is called lack of binocularity and can result in double vision, blurry vision and poor depth perception. Over time, if untreated the brain will learn to ignore the eye that isn’t focusing. When this happens you end up with amblyopia or what is often called a lazy eye. To prevent this from happening strabismus needs to be treated by the time a child is 4-6 years old.
The first thing noticed during assessment of a child with strabismus is that their eyes may appear crossed or not working in a coordinated way. Because of this lack of focus they will have double or blurred vision and poor depth perception. To compensate for this the child may squint their eyes or tilt their head to try and get a better focus on what they are looking at.
So, first things first, these kids need a full eye exam. This won’t likely fall to you as the RN, but could if you go on to train as a nurse practitioner. Tests use to further investigate for strabismus are the corneal light reflex test, and the cover test.
The first step to help treat the strabismus is to give the weaker eye a chance to get stronger and the way this is done is to put an eye patch over the stronger eye for a certain number of hours per day to let the weak eye learn to focus and take over.
Vision therapy is also used to help strengthen the eye muscles and teach the eyes to work together and it’s basically just like physical therapy for the eyes.
If these things don’t work then the child may need to have surgery to either loosen or tighten the muscles that are causing the problems.
Your priority nursing concepts for a pediatric patient with strabismus are sensory perception and human development.
Okay guys, lets go over the key points for this lesson! When a child has strabismus their eyes aren’t able to focus together on an object. This can lead to the eyes appearing crossed and the patient will experience double vision and have poor depth perception. The first step in treating this is to place an eye patch over the good eye to help the weaker eye get stronger. If this doesn’t work the child may need surgery. It’s super important to get this treated by 4-6 years to prevent amblyopia or lazy eye- where the brain basically permanently learns to ignore the weak, unfocused eye.
That’s it for our lesson on Strabismus in pediatric patients! Make sure you check out all the resources attached to this lesson. Now, go out and be your best self today. Happy Nursing!
Study Faster with Full Video Transcripts
99.25% NCLEX Pass Rate vs 88.8% National Average
- Full lesson outlines
- NCLEX simulator (SIMCLEX)
- 6,500+ practice questions
- 2,000+ lesson videos
- 300+ cheatsheets
200% NCLEX Pass Guarantee.
No Contract. Cancel Anytime.
6 week
Concepts Covered:
- Gastrointestinal Disorders
- Respiratory Disorders
- EENT Disorders
- Infectious Disease Disorders
- Lower GI Disorders
- Integumentary Disorders
- Neurologic and Cognitive Disorders
- Medication Administration
- Hematologic Disorders
- Integumentary Disorders
- Cardiovascular Disorders
- Musculoskeletal Disorders
- Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders
- Renal and Urinary Disorders
- Urinary System
- Studying
- Oncologic Disorders
- Central Nervous System Disorders – Brain
- Renal Disorders
- Infectious Respiratory Disorder
- Noninfectious Respiratory Disorder
- Urinary Disorders
- Sexually Transmitted Infections
- EENT Disorders