| Diplopia, commonly known as double vision, is the simultaneous perception of two images of a single object. Usually, diplopia is connected with constraints on movements of one eye; hence two eyes simultaneously cannot see the same object. This may be related to defects in the nerves or muscles which control the movements of the eye or a mechanical restriction on movements of the eyeball in fovea. Double vision, not ceasing when an eye is closed may be linked with the beginning of a cataract.
More often diplopia happens when a weakness (paresis) paralysis of one of the oculomotor muscles occurs, or when the concurrent actions of the eyeballs fail due to which a projected picture falls on non-corresponding (aligned at different distances from the yellow spot) points of the retina of both eyes.
Features of diplopia:
Binocular vision always fails in diplopia. Diplopia subsides when one eye is closed. Rarely (for instance, after trauma, when divulsion of the iris root occurs and as if two pupils take shape, or in subluxation of the crystalline lens) it is monocular vision – one and the same object gives two pictures in one eye. When the other eye is closed double vision does not cease.
Diplopia studies mean a lot for determining the paralysis of the oculomotor muscles occurring often in several common diseases (cephalitis, brain hemorrhage etc.).
Diplopia may occur due to failures in the central parts of the visual tract and failures in muscle balance due to weakness functions of the affected eye muscles, which causes deviations and absence of mobility of the eye to the one or other side. The deviation of the eye causes a projection of an object’s picture, examined by both eyes, into non-identical (disparate) parts of the retina. The causes of double vision are paralysis, or the paresis of the oculomotor muscles (often Oculomotorius muscles is the result of injuries to the eye-pits and skull, phlogistic infectional diseases and also botulism.).
Diplopia-symptoms:
The patient complains of the doubling of things. The feature of doubling depends upon the distribution of the process: when straight muscles are affected parallel doubling is observed, when loxotic muscles are affected, things when doubled may be “aligned” one on the other, when in paralytic strabismus doubling appears towards the direction of the gaze to the affected muscle’s side.
Deviation of the eyeball to the one or other side is objectively defined: when in paralytic strabismus, the movement of the eyeball to the side of the affected muscle is absent or limited. In inflectional diseases, meningitis, brain vascular diseases, allantiasis - symptoms of the respected diseases are observed.
Diplopia – emergency hospital care is defined by the nature of the main disease.
Trauma of the skull – urgent hospitalization in a neurosurgery or traumatology department.
Phlogotic infectional diseases and allantiasis - contagious isolation ward. In emergency cases hospitalization is recommended in accordance with the course of the main disease and the general condition of the patient.
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