Video Games May Help Children's Vision Problems

by KYW's medical editor Dr. Brian McDonough

Amblyopia is the leading cause of vision impairment in children – 2 to 3 out of 100 are affected. The common name is lazy eye and the treatment is putting a patch over the eye. What they are doing is covering the good eye in order to force the brain to use the "lazy" one. It's all about forcing the brain to wire properly.

Now some studies are being done to take the patch over one eye several steps further.

Researchers are looking at telling study participants to play 40 hours of video games in 2-hour intervals over the course of a month, all the while wearing a patch over their good eye. The researchers believe this will help with improvement by working the poor eye in a creative and fun way.