Exophoria is a form of

heterophoria Heterophoria is an eye condition in which the directions that the eyes are pointing at rest position, when ''not'' performing binocular fusion, are not the same as each other, or, "not straight". This condition can be esophoria, where the eyes ten ...

in which there is a tendency of the eyes to deviate outward. During examination, when the eyes are dissociated, the visual axes will appear to diverge away from one another. The axis deviation in exophoria is usually mild compared with that of

exotropia Exotropia is a form of strabismus where the eyes are deviated outward. It is the opposite of esotropia and usually involves more severe axis deviation than exophoria. People with exotropia often experience crossed diplopia. Intermittent exotropi ...

Cause

Exophoria can be caused by several factors, which include: *Refractive errors – distance and near deviation approximately equal. *

Divergence excess Strabismus is a vision disorder in which the eyes do not properly align with each other when looking at an object. The eye that is focused on an object can alternate. The condition may be present occasionally or constantly. If present during a ...

- exodeviation is more than 15 dioptres greater for distance than near deviation. *

Convergence insufficiency Convergence insufficiency is a sensory and neuromuscular anomaly of the binocular vision system, characterized by a reduced ability of the eyes to turn towards each other, or sustain convergence. Symptoms The symptoms and signs associated with con ...

– near exodeviation greater than distance deviation. These can be due to

nerve A nerve is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of nerve fibers (called axons) in the peripheral nervous system. A nerve transmits electrical impulses. It is the basic unit of the peripheral nervous system. A nerve provides a common pathway for the e ...

muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...

, or congenital problems, or due to mechanical anomalies. Unlike

, fusion is possible in this condition, causing

diplopia Diplopia is the simultaneous perception of two images of a single object that may be displaced horizontally or vertically in relation to each other. Also called double vision, it is a loss of visual focus under regular conditions, and is often v ...

to be uncommon.

Diagnosis

Prevalence

Exophoria is particularly common in

infancy An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...

and

childhood A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...

, and increases with age.

References

External links

Disorders of ocular muscles, binocular movement, accommodation and refraction {{eye-stub