Convergence insufficiency (CI) is a binocular anomaly associated with difficulty of the two eyes to converge during near vision. This study investigated the performance of binocular vision in subjects with CI. The performance of binocular vision that comprised of distant binocular visual acuity (VA), near binocular VA and stereoacuity of subjects with CI were compared with normals. Thirty subjects with CI of mean age 17.33 ±5.49 year-old and 30 normal subjects of mean age 18.77 ± 6.08 year-old with visual acuity of VA 6/6 or better, spherical refractive error of no more than ± 4.00 DS, astigmatism no more than 2.00 DC, non-strabismic and never had vision therapy, with good general and ocular health were recruited for the study. The monocular VA of the right eye, monocular VA of the left eye, binocular VA and stereoacuity of the two groups of subjects were measured and the data were compared. Results of the study showed significant differences in the distance binocular VA (t = 2.31, p < 0.05), near binocular VA (t = 0.89, p < 0.05) and stereoacuity (Z = -2.81, p < 0.01) between CI and normal subjects. The study concludes that subjects with CI experienced reduced performances distance binocular VA, near binocular VA and stereoacuity compared with normal subjects.

Amblyopia is one of the most common causes of visual defi cit in children. Presently, in the Ministry of Health Malaysia hospitals, there is no documented data on the characteristic and profi le of amblyopia cases. This study was conducted to describe the profi le of new amblyopia cases seen by optometrists at the Ministry of Health (MOH) Hospitals. This study was a retrospective and multicenter study including all MOH hospitals with optometry clinics. Clinical record data of amblyopic patients aged 3 to 17 years old who were newly diagnosed between 1st August 2010 to 31st January 2011 and who fulfi lled the inclusion criteria were obtained. Data collected included demography, systemic history, ocular history and optometric fi ndings and diagnosis. Thirty eight MOH hospitals participated and a total of 301 patients were diagnosed with functional amblyopia within the study period. Mean age for these amblyopic patients was 7.70 + 0.16 years old. Boys were the predominant gender (57.1%) and Malay preceded the other races with a 65.4% occurrence. Mild amblyopia was found in 51.5% of the patients, 31.6% were with moderate amblyopia and only 16.9% of patients were severe amblyopia. The underlying amblyogenic causes assessed were ametropia (61.5%), anisometropia (25.2%), strabismus (9.3%) and stimulus deprivation (4.0%). Refractive error was discovered as the most common cause of amblyopia in this study. It is crucial for optometrists to detect this type of visual impairment and undertake an early optometric intervention