Vision Therapy

Vision Therapy

Optometric vision therapy (VT) is the branch of optometric care devoted to developing, improving & enhancing people’s visual performance. VT can benefit people of all ages! Many smart children & adults have trouble achieving, and the problem is not intelligence, but deficient visual skills.

Is Vision Therapy Right for You?

Over the last several decades, behavioral optometrists have successfully used specialized lenses in conjunction with VT to:

• Prevent vision and eye problems from developing or progressing

• Develop the visual skills needed to be successful at school and work

• Enhance functioning on tasks demanding sustained visual effort

• Remediate vision & eye problems that have already developed
  
  

We are NOT born with the ability to see!! Most of us are born with perfectly good arms, legs, eyes, etc. but we have to learn how to use them properly. Babies are born seeing (blurry) about 18 inches from their face and it takes several weeks to see further, and many months to distinguish colors, learn how to focus on objects, etc. Many people from the time they were babies never learned to use their eyes properly. For example, the developmental stage of crawling for a baby is very important. It trains the brain to use both sides of the body together and has a direct impact on the eyes. We have one eye for each side of our body, but if the brain does not learn to use both sides of the body in conjunction, there can be issues.

There are many babies that skip the crawling stage to go straight to walking, and many of these people manifest visual problems later in life. Our eyes are just the “information takers”, and it is our brain that processes that information to create the picture, our “vision”. What we “see” is the combination of our eyes, brain, and all of our other senses working together! 80% of all the information we take in and the process is visual, so Vision is the dominant of our 5 senses!

Visual Skills

Tracking
Ability to follow a moving object smoothly & accurately.

Depth Perception
To judge relative distances operate accurately in 3D space.

Visualization
To form mental images in your “mind’s eye.”

Fixation
Ability to quickly & accurately locate with both eyes a series of stationary objects, such as reading words.

Peripheral Vision
Monitor & interpret what is happening around you while attending to a task in front of you.

Focus flexibility
To look quickly from far to near & vice versa without momentary blur.

Binocularity
Ability to use both eyes together, smoothly, equally, simultaneously, & accurately.

Visual Symptoms To Look For

Headaches
Headaches are the result of many issues. Most people relate headaches to stress or sinus issues, but many headaches are a result of the following vision symptoms.

Double Vision
2 objects are seen when only 1 exists.

Alternation
The brain only pays attention to 1 eye at a time, often switching back and forth between the two eyes rapidly.

Suppression
The brain ignores one eye or “turns one eye off” as a coping mechanism to avoid seeing double.

Reduced performance
Losing one’s place while reading, re-reading words or lines, difficulty with understanding or recalling what was read, or reading slowly.

Discomfort, Fatigue
Stress or pain; weariness at the end of a school or work day.