I was recently contacted by a researcher from the University of Southhampton who is researching barriers and facilitators of patching or occlusion therapy. She is doing a survey of anyone who has helped a child patch or who wore a patch themselves. She writes:

Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, is the most common cause of preventable visual impairment in children, and yet the treatment does not work for half of children. We are hoping to understand further the challenges experienced with patching treatment and are launching a survey looking into the barriers and facilitators to occlusion therapy. By getting some learned experience from a wide range of people involved in patching- patients, parents, teachers, healthcare professionals, we hope to improve visual outcomes for children.

We would also like to get a clearer understanding of whether new advances in the field, such as apps that can detect whether a child is wearing their patch and give them rewards within the game, would be useful for people in everyday life.

To be able to make change and influence the treatment outcomes of occlusion therapy in the future, we need your help. If you have any previous experience of patching, or helping someone else to patch, we would love to hear from you. Please complete our survey linked below.

https://forms.office.com/r/0zrWPX0smC

Also if you have the chance, please could you share this survey with others, so that we can reach as many people as possible!

If you are interested in further research in this field, please drop us an email to
getinvolvedineyeresearch@gmail.com