SHAW™ lens is a foolproof binocular lens design
system. We can do better for our patients –
and that’s the driving force behind the SHAW lens.

New Report Shows
Amblyopia Can Be
Treated Without
Patching using the
SHAW™ lens

This month, the College of Optometrists in Vision Development published a new study in their journal, Optometry & Vision Development, which demonstrates a case where successful treatment of amblyopia was achieved without patching using the methodology behind the SHAW lens.

For years the prescribed treatment for amblyopia has been to artificially suppress the dominant or “good” eye using a patch or Atropine drops. But the efficacy of this has always been questionable. In some instances patching can train the weaker eye to engage, but not without undue strain on the patient – especially when the patient is young. And because patching is a monocular approach, oftentimes there are no long-term positive effects.

“Occlusion therapy or patching a child’s good eye for hours at a time is now an “old school” approach,” says Dr. Peter J. Shaw OD, and co-founder of Shaw Lens Inc. “It is, in some ways, cruel and it does not address the underlying cause which is the lack of binocular (two-eyed) vision development.

Using the prototype for the SHAW lens as part of the study, the team at the University of Waterloo School of Optometry and Vision Science have succeeded in reversing the amblyopia caused by anisometropia using the patent-pending SHAW lens technology. The SHAW lens system is able to manage the static aniseikonia (image size disparity); the balancing of image size enables the brain to fuse images in both eyes for the first time. This makes the wearing of these lenses comfortable for the patient which means the patient, again, especially a young patient, is more likely to comply with the prescribed full-time wearing of the glasses. The outcome can be amazing. To read the full article, see the COVD web site or go to shawlens.com

Amblyopia Lenses –
What you may not expect

With lenses to treat amblyopia, one lens will be thicker that the other.
However, you may be surprised to see that it is the weaker lens that is thicker!

Lens magnification is created by a combination of the shape/thickness and the dioptric power. We can’t reduce the power so we optimize the shape to compensate optically. This results in the weaker lens being thicker to balance image size. Parents who are presented with the option to treat their child’s amblyopia are generally unconcerned with the lens thickness, especially when compared to patching.

Because of the difference in lens thickness, we recommend a Zyl edge frame so that the difference is not visible.

The extra thickness is absolutely normal, and at the end of the day, we now have a patient without amblyopia and without using patching!

Case: 4 year old amblyope

The image above shows the difference between a conventional 1.6 lens and the SHAW lens. The darker blue indicates the binocular field of view.

Out of the mouths of babes
This patient’s parents ordered an additional pair of glasses from an online optical supplier. The child put them on and then just took them off, saying, “I can’t wear those.” The refractive prescription was correct and the PD was supplied as requested. The traditional lenses failed to correct the static and dynamic components of the anisometropia, and the child immediately found the traditional lenses to be unwearable.