A recent study published in the Archives of Opthalmology compare patching of one eye vs acupuncture in the treatment of amblyopia in older children, and finds positive results from acupuncture. The study, and its press, are a good example of the hazards of studying highly implausible modalities.
First let’s dissect the study itself – from the abstract:
In a single-center randomized controlled trial, 88 eligible children with an amblyopic eye who had a best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) of 0.3 to 0.8 logMAR at baseline were randomly assigned to receive 2 hours of patching of the sound eye daily or 5 sessions of acupuncture weekly. All participants in our study received constant optical correction, plus 1 hour of near-vision activities daily, and were followed up at weeks 5, 10, 15, and 25. The main outcome measure was BSCVA in the amblyopic eye at 15 weeks.
For background, amblyopia occurs when the brain tends to ignore visual information from one eye. This results from a variety of causes, but commonly from the two eyes having different refractive errors (anisometropic) – one eye may be more near-sighted or far-sighted than the other. The brain cannot combine information from both eyes, so it ignores one. This can be corrected in younger children, up to age 7, by correcting the vision for the refractive problems. If visual correction alone is not enough, then patching one eye (the strong eye) to force the brain to use the weak eye can be effective. This is usually done for only 2 hours a day, otherwise amblyopia of the patched eye can occur.