A sixth-year Doctor of Optometry student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Doreen Tachie-Donkor, together with a team of senior optometrists, has helped restore a young boy’s vision, without the need for surgery.

The boy had been suffering from accommodative esotropia, a condition in which one or both eyes turn inward due to the effort of focusing (accommodation).

This condition, popularly known in Ghana as 'alukumi', was successfully corrected by Doreen and her team.

Doreen shared the experience in a recent post on X, explaining that the team used a technique called "wet refraction" to correct the boy’s vision.

“This process is called wet refraction. Once we gave him the correct prescription based on that, his eyes completely straightened. No surgery, just glasses!”

She further clarified that in cases where glasses alone are not effective, other interventions may be necessary to align the eyes.

“In other cases where glasses alone don’t work, surgery, prisms, or vision therapy may be needed to help align the eyes,” she added.

Read her post below:

I see we have lots of questions so I will try to break this down as simply as possible:

This little one has a type of strabismus called Accommodative Esotropia. Basically, his eyes turn inward, especially when he’s doing things like reading or focusing on close-up work.

— doreeeeenn👩🏻‍⚕️🇬🇭 (@dr_doreeeeenn) April 19, 2025