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Category: Blog

Myopia Control & Management

WHAT IS MYOPIA?

Myopia is a refractive error (commonly referred to as nearsightedness) causing distance vision to be blurry. The myopic eye is typically longer than the non-myopic eye. Myopia often occurs during childhood when the eye is still growing and the earlier it occurs, the more likely the myopia will worsen if appropriate interventions are not employed.

In the early 1970s, only 25% of Americans were nearsighted. Today more than 40% are nearsighted and the number is increasing at an alarming rate, especially among school-age children. It is being called a myopia epidemic. By 2050 it is predicted that 58% of North Americans will be myopic.

Family history (genetics) and lifestyle are the main reasons myopia incidence is increasing. Reduced time spent outdoors and increased screen time indoors increase the risk of myopia.

Leaving progressive myopia unaddressed may contribute to the development of more severe sight-threatening complications later in life, including retinal detachment, myopic maculopathy, glaucoma and earlier development of cataracts.

WHAT IS MYOPIA MANAGEMENT?

Myopia management involves using special lenses, prescription eye drops and/or lifestyle changes to slow or stop the progression of myopia. A myopia management program may include one or more of the following methods.

DUAL FOCUS SOFT CONTACT LENSES

Myopia management with soft contact lenses uses specially designed optics to focus light on the retina in such a way as to keep the eye from elongating (increasing axial length) thereby slowing or stopping the progression of myopia.

  • Advantage: while these are specially designed soft contact lenses for myopia control, their care is the same as other soft contacts so parents may be more familiar with them.
  • Disadvantage: recurring cost

CORNEAL RESHAPING LENSES OR CORNEAL REFRACTIVE THERAPY

These contact lenses are FDA approved to be worn while sleeping to reshape the cornea temporarily correcting the myopia. This eliminates the need for glasses or daytime contact lenses. In addition, the curvature of the lenses focuses light on the retina in such a way as to keep the eye from elongating (increasing axial length) thereby slowing or stopping the progression of myopia.

  • Advantage: since no lenses are being worn during the day, these can be a real benefit for certain athletes such as swimmers.
  • Disadvantage: lenses must be worn every night for at least 6 hours.

LOW DOSE ATROPINE DROPS

Studies show that a low dose of atropine, typically administered as eye drops in the evening, has the potential to significantly slow the progression of myopia in children.

  • Advantage: these can be used in conjunction with other myopia control measures
  • Disadvantage: it takes motivation of parents and child to get the drops in nightly. There do not appear to be other quality of life issues with the drops.

LIFESTYLE CHANGES TO COMBAT NEARSIGHTEDNESS

  • Increase outdoor time to two hours a day
  • Reduce screen time and maintain an adequate working distance of about 16 inches
  • Follow the 20-20-20 rule when doing near or computer work: every 20 minutes look 20 feet away for 20 seconds

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

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Virtual reality takes Vision Therapy into the future

Highline Center for Vision Performance is proud to now include Vivid Vision, a virtual reality (VR) based therapy, to our digital toolbox. We are currently one of only five vision clinics in the state of Colorado to offer this new technology to our vision therapy patients. Not only is this new tool fun, it’s yielding faster results in many patients.

What is virtual reality?

Virtual reality is a system connecting computers, trackers, and goggles together to create an immersive visual (and sometimes auditory) experience. Small screens are positioned in front of each eye that project images that make it seem like you are moving through a different reality – one in which you can interact. Users hold controllers that allow them to steer through virtual environments and affect specific elements programmed for interaction. You can play games, visit far away places, and learn new skills.

Because binocular vision problems almost always include a reduced or inability to see in 3-D, VR and vision therapy are a perfect match to enhance visual skills.

Vivid Vision changes the game

Vivid Vision is a new software that utilizes VR technology to create customized vision therapy exercises for children and adults with binocular vision problems. Vivid Vision helps train the eyes, brain, and body to all work together. The screens within the goggles project separate images to each eye that the brain fuses into a single image, just like in the real world. That is what provides a sense of depth and motion.

In particular, Vivid Vision supports other vision therapy approaches to treat:

Why is virtual reality important for Vision Therapy?

Vivid Vision is precise and allows our vision therapists to adjust the images projected to each eye independently in order to train specific visual skills. The images can be controlled in terms of brightness and clarity according to specific needs.

Take the Pepper Picker game, for example. When the VR goggles are on, patients see the hand-held controllers as a pair of hands they can move. Pulling the trigger on the controller allows the user to grab items they see in the VR environment. Once in the game, users are standing between several tall plants with big leaves and in front of them is a list of vegetables that they must find by searching through the leaves. The goal is to find the specific vegetables on the list in order and in proper quantities.

Sounds easy, right? Here’s where the game gets high-tech: one eye is being shown the vegetables and the other eye sees only the hands. This forces the eyes to work together to see the whole picture and pick the veggies. Therapists can make small adjustments to various details of the scene in order to challenge each patient uniquely.

Other exercises challenge depth perception. The Bubbles game challenges users to pop bubbles that appear in front of them by reaching out to touch them with an index finger. The goal is to pop the bubble that is closest to you first. As the game progresses, therapists will gradually move the bubbles closer and closer together so the eyes and brain learn to recognize smaller and smaller deviations in visual depth.

Another game challenges depth perception at distance by asking users to use a squirt gun to hit various carnival targets. The rules require the player to hit targets closest first. As with every exercise, therapists can change details on-the-fly to keep them challenging and advance visual skills development.

Vivid Vision at home

Another exciting opportunity Vivid Vision allows is for *home vision therapy. Most vision therapy appointments take place in our office with a patient working one-on-one with their vision therapist. However, sometimes it is necessary for a vision therapy session to happen remotely and Vivid Vision is a natural fit for distance sessions.

*Highline Center for Vision performance recommends only using the Vivid Vision software under the guidance of a certified vision therapist. Vivid Vision is only one component to our robust vision therapy program that is customized for every patient.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

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Amblyopia: Causes & Treatments

Amblyopia, often called “lazy eye,” is a treatable disorder of vision development that begins during infancy and early childhood. With amblyopia, an otherwise healthy eye is unable to achieve normal visual acuity (20/20) even with glasses or contact lenses. In addition to poor visual acuity, people with amblyopia are more likely to have difficulties with eye-hand coordination, clumsiness, reading, depth perception and understanding what is seen.

In most cases, only one eye is affected but it may occur in both eyes. According to the National Institute of Health, amblyopia is the most common cause of visual impairment among children in the United States and is estimated to affect 3.5% of the US Population, despite being preventable with early diagnosis.

Clues that your child may have amblyopia include crying or fussing when an eye is covered or if the child constantly turns their head to the right or left.

WHAT CAUSES AMBLYOPIA?

There are three types of amblyopia, based on the underlying cause:

  • Strabismic amblyopia:  This is the most common cause of amblyopia. Strabismus is also known as an eye turn. To avoid double vision caused by poorly aligned eyes, the brain ignores the visual input from the misaligned eye and vision fails to develop properly. If you notice your baby or young child has crossed eyes or some other apparent eye misalignment, schedule a comprehensive eye exam immediately.
  • Refractive amblyopia: Amblyopia may be caused by unequal refractive errors in the two eyes, despite perfect eye alignment. For example, one eye may have a significant prescription while the other does not. The brain relies on the eye that has better vision and “tunes out” the blurred vision from the other eye. It can also occur in both eyes when they each have a high uncorrected prescription.
  • Deprivation amblyopia: This is caused by something that obstructs light from entering a baby’s eye, such as a congenital cataract or droopy eyelid (ptosis). Prompt treatment of the obstruction is necessary to allow normal visual development to occur.

Young children with amblyopia rarely have any symptoms. Comprehensive eye examinations are the best way to identify patients with amblyopia or those who are at risk for developing amblyopia. According to the American Optometric Association, children should have their first comprehensive eye exam at 6 months of age.

AMBLYOPIA TREATMENT

In some cases of refractive amblyopia, normal vision may be achieved simply by wearing prescribed glasses or contact lenses. Usually additional treatment is required to stimulate the brain to use the amblyopic eye and enable proper visual development.

Vision therapy is a structured program of activities prescribed to improve visual abilities and acuity. It trains the eyes and brain to work together more effectively and reinforces the connection to the amblyopic eye. During certain activities, the better seeing eye will need to be blurred in order to encourage the brain to pay more attention to the amblyopic eye. This may be done with special fogging patches.

The latest research demonstrates that binocular vision therapy is the most effective long-term solution for amblyopia. Full time patching is rarely the best option for treatment of mild to moderate amblyopia. If patching is indicated, most cases of amblyopia will show improvement with just 2 hours of fogged patching per day in combination with specific visually stimulating activities. For additional resources, please visit www.amblyopiaproject.com.

CHILDREN WILL NOT “OUTGROW” AMBLYOPIA

Amblyopia will not go away if left untreated and can lead to permanent visual problems. An injury or disease in the better seeing eye in the future will leave the person depending on the poor vision in their amblyopic eye, so it is best to treat amblyopia as early as possible.

Modern amblyopia treatments may improve vision in older children and adults, but early detection and treatment is the best chance for normal visual development and optimal visual outcomes.

In addition, best corrected visual acuity of worse than 20/40 in the better eye may require a person to have a restricted driver’s license in Colorado. This could mean a number of restrictions, including no driving at night or during rush hour, no freeway driving, a restricted geographical area the person must stay within and requiring the addition of extra mirrors to the vehicle.

Protect your vision for life! Call Highline Vision Center to schedule a comprehensive eye exam today.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

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Vision Therapy: Weeks Four through Six

We’ve been busy practicing vision therapy at home amongst other things and I’m very excited to share with you that Nolan is making great progress in vision therapy.  Not only are we starting to see changes in how he is progressing through the various exercises, but we are seeing a positive impact in his everyday life.

“Good thing I’m doing vision therapy Daddy, or I would’ve probably knocked that over.”

~Nolan

I mentioned previously that one of the reasons we started vision therapy was because we felt that Nolan was somewhat clumsy, often knocking into things. Nolan’s job after dinner is usually to clear the plates from the table… something that used to make me cringe as I waited for him to drop or knock something over. Well, just the other night, he successfully lifted his plate up and over his sister’s ill-placed glass, and then proudly stated, “Good thing I’m doing vision therapy Daddy, or I would’ve probably knocked that over.”  Yes!  I was so excited not only to see this change but to know that he was seeing it as well.

In addition, Nolan surprised me at a recent vision therapy session.  There’s a game that we have called Squap.  It’s basically a catch and throw type game that uses paddles and a ping pong ball.  It’s actually fairly challenging. I was surprised not only that Nolan chose to try it with Ariana, but that he actually was able to catch the ball consistently. Catching is one of the things that Nolan really wanted to improve on, and it’s exciting to see him making progress at things that are important to him.

Progress is important to see. And it’s especially important to us as both parents and optometrists that we help our children not only excel at activities in vision therapy, but that we help them to translate those things into everyday life. Seeing these improvements helps us and our patients gain the motivation to continue working hard to get the best results possible!

Nolan plays Squap with Ariana.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

Schedule An Appointment

Vision Therapy Triumph: Elliot

Elliot, like many students, thought that his classroom struggles could be overcome by hard work alone. As a senior in high school he received a Vision and Learning Screening as recommended by Dr. Doyle, his Highline optometrist. He was then able to understand just how adversely his visual skills affected his learning. The screening revealed his reading comprehension was just 30 percent.

Reading is one of the most challenging aspects of education for school-aged children. It’s also one of the most important considering some amount of reading is required in nearly all subjects. Add a vision deficiency and reading can become an extremely anxiety-inducing part of the school equation.

For Elliot, reading was a struggle for most of his school life. When he read, Elliot would find himself going back over the same lines of text multiple times.

“I would read the first three words or so and then go back,” he recalls. “I was having to read words over and over in order for them to make sense.” Elliot

In 2012, when Elliot was in the 8th grade, his Highline eye doctor prescribed Vision Therapy but, at the time, he and his parents were not convinced his problems learning were related to his vision. Most tasks would take him considerably longer than they should. He was also performing poorly on tests.

“It was frustrating because I would study for tests and my mom would quiz me and I would do great,” he says. “I understood the material but when it came time to take the test, the questions I was reading wouldn’t make sense.”

It wasn’t until the beginning of his senior year, in 2018, that Elliot and his mom decided it was time to do something about his vision to address the problems he was having with reading and comprehension. At that time he had developed headaches when reading.

Taking Action

Nancy Stevens worked with Elliot as his vision therapist.

Elliot’s optometrist, Dr. Nick Doyle, prescribed glasses and a course of Vision Therapy. Vision Therapy works to enhance the eye/brain connection. When visual efficiency and comfort are optimal, students can comprehend information faster and work on tasks longer and more comfortably.

In Elliot’s case, a Vision and Learning Screening from Highline Center for Vision Performance revealed that his eyes were not converging properly. Because of poor convergence, also referred to as eye teaming or binocular vision, his reading comprehension was adversely impacted. Convergence is just one of the 20 vision skills that can impact overall vision performance.

When Elliot first began Vision Therapy, his reading speed was 216 words per minute. But after just eight weeks of his prescribed therapy, that jumped to 400 words per minute.

Upon completion of 14 weeks of vision therapy, Elliot had made major improvements in his reading speed and comprehension and his headaches resolved.

Eliot’s reading comprehension jumped to upwards of 80 percent within his first eight weeks of therapy. In addition to weekly sessions, where he would work with a Highline Center for Vision Performance therapist, Elliot would also have at-home assignments to reinforce the therapeutic benefits and make skills automatic.

Nancy Stevens, Elliot’s vision therapist says, “I was so impressed by how committed Elliot was to his home Vision Therapy practice. At only eight weeks, his visagraph tests revealed his reading speed had jumped from severely reduced to 12th grade level! These dramatic changes can only come when the patient, parent and vision therapist work as a team.”

Building Confidence

Ultimately, Elliot says Vision Therapy has had a major positive impact on his level of confidence, thanks to a higher level of classroom success and improved grades in all of his courses. Whereas homework and test taking were once a source of anxiety, he says he’s now back to enjoying learning and setting his sights on college.

“Before I felt stressed out about how fast I finished the test, but now it doesn’t take me more than one try to read the questions,” he says. “I feel more calm during tests because I can read a question and understand and comprehend it.”

What’s more is that Elliot says Vision Therapy also helped him excel at the sports he loves. He’s been involved in both football and basketball since he was in grade school.

“Overall, I feel more confident in basketball and football — my eye/hand coordination has definitely improved,” he says. “This is real, and it helped change my life.”

“We are so proud of Elliot and his success,” Nancy says. “He has already reaped the rewards of his hard work by recently being accepted to CSU. He even wrote a college essay about how Vision Therapy had helped him. His story brings me so much joy and I know his future is brighter now that he can learn more easily!”

If your child is struggling in academics or sports contact Highline Center for Vision Performance today for a complimentary Vision and Learning Screening.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

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Brandon Belt, San Francisco Giants First Baseman, Speaks About Vision Therapy

Video courtesy of Carole L. Hong, OD, FCOVD: In this video, San Francisco Giants first baseman, Brandon Belt, discusses how vision therapy helped him recover from concussions even though he had “perfect vision.” Even now, he continues to go to vision therapy and he thinks vision therapy is “the next level of the game.”

Voice of Carole L. Hong, OD, FCOVD: Brandon, I know you’ve been quoted as saying like “If I can see it, I can hit it,” and I know that vision therapy was a part of your journey. Can you tell us a little bit about that and any vision symptoms that you had prior…

Brandon Belt: Yes, so, I basically have perfect vision. I mean, I can see really well. Like, I don’t know. Like, superhuman vision. <laughter> So, I mean. And, I say that for a reason too. Because, and I think a lot of athletes are like that. So, when the smallest thing is off, we notice it.

And, you know, it’s not, I mean this is a couple of different ways that it affects you. I mean sometimes it’s double vision. Sometimes something’s blurry. Sometimes everything just slowed down and your eyes aren’t moving as quickly as you want them to. So, I think that’s what I meant by saying what I said.

But, that also brings the most stress too, because in baseball, your eyes are everything. You’ve got to have them working perfectly, and when it doesn’t come back quickly, man, that brings on a lot of anxiety, and that’s one of the biggest problems I have, and after the last two concussions I went to vision therapy and I did that for a couple months.

I did it [vision therapy] during the off season because that’s just when my concussions fell – I was able to do it in the off season. So I did in the 4 months of the off season, and I came back and had both years, pretty much, had all star seasons.

So, one was in 2016 and one was before last season, and I was having one of my best years to date last year before I had the surgery. So, the thing I learned from that was vision therapy is pretty important whether you have a concussion or not.

So, I didn’t have a concussion this year, but I’ve been going back. And, I think that’s probably, I might be getting off on a tangent here, but that is probably the next phase of the game. That, to me, people are really going to acknowledge and say, “Hey, we gotta get better at this if we want to be better baseball players, if we want to be better athletes.”

So, I’ve been going back and doing that, and it’s just so important to our craft and to our sport. That it means everything, and that why I said that and why it’s so important to me at the time.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

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Vision Therapy: Week Three

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I see kids on a regular basis who have binocular vision or eye tracking efficiency deficits. Usually, the process of explaining this is fairly straightforward. We sometimes show parents examples of activities that their children are struggling with, we go through certain test results with them and compare them against normal values, etc. But when my six-year-old son, Nolan, asked me the other night why he had to do his vision therapy homework I felt somewhat ill-prepared….

“I had to make it important to him, getting him to buy in to doing months of practice at home with me.”

Dr. Nick Doyle, Optometrist

Nolan practicing saccade – a very fast eye movement exercise.

At that moment, I realized that I’d never really had to fully explain this to someone as young as he was.  Sure, we explain things like this to patients all the time, but usually we talk more directly to some of our older kids and teenaged patients. Nolan proceeded to tell me that he could “see everything clearly” and that his “eyes were fine” …all while he was protesting starting his vision therapy home practice of course.

And he wasn’t wrong.  He CAN see things clearly.  He doesn’t need glasses, and in fact, glasses won’t help with what we’re trying to accomplish anyway.  Unfortunately, he’s too smart for me to give him the tired old generic parent response of “because I said so.”  I knew that I needed to craft my response in a manner that would help him to see the benefit.  I had to make it important to him, getting him to buy in to doing months of practice at home with me.  I thought about some of the things that he’d mentioned in the past… how he didn’t want to play baseball because he thought he wasn’t good at catching, how he loves riding his bike, and how the thing he was most excited about when he started school was learning to read.

I began to tell him how practicing vision therapy would help him to learn to catch and throw the baseball better, how he’d be able to ride his bike more confidently on the path and know where to turn (he sometimes has trouble with staying on the right side too), and how it would help him to become an even better reader.  I explained to him that his eyes not only have to see things clearly, but they have to move like a team, just like all of the other parts of his body. Thankfully, Ariana reinforced this at his vision therapy session by telling him that his eyes have to tell his brain to tell his body where to move.

And so seemingly, for now at least, I had his attention.  Since that conversation, I’ve had good cooperation getting his home practice started, even after a long day of school.  We always tell patients that we don’t want vision therapy to become a burden to them, especially during the school year, and believe me, I know how hard it is to try and grab the attention of a child after a full day of school when his brain is just done paying attention for the day.  As parents (and optometrists) we have to come up with better ways to get our children and patients to see value in what we’re providing, whether that means talking about things they’d like to improve on, inventing incentive systems, etc.  In the age of instant gratification, this can be less than easy. But the lessons learned by continuing to work toward a goal can be invaluable… both for a visual system, and a developing young mind.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

Schedule An Appointment

Vision Therapy: Week One

It was a snowy and cold Saturday morning when Nolan and I headed to the office for his first session of vision therapy.  I knew what to expect as we walked into the office, but my inquisitive six-year-old was curious about what lay ahead of him for the next forty-five minutes.  I began to tell him a little bit about what he would learn in vision therapy and that a lot of the things he would do would be fun like games.  This seemed to pique his interest even more.

Meeting Our Vision Therapist

Nolan was excited to meet his vision therapist, Ariana, and you could tell immediately that they were going to work well together.  Ariana was quick to remind me that usually they like to have parents in for the last ten to fifteen minutes of the session so that they can go over home practice activities.  So, I did the thing I’m most uncomfortable doing… I waited.  (My whole staff will tell you that I’m likely the most impatient person they’ve ever met.)

Nolan at his first week in Vision Therapy with Ariana, his Vision Therapist.

When it was time for me to come back to see how Nolan had been doing, he had a big smile on his face. He was proud to show me all of the activities that he had worked on, especially the ones that we’d be working on at home.

Ariana explained that we’d be working a lot on eye tracking activities for the first week since this really is a foundation of how our eyes work together.  She did a fantastic job of explaining what activities we would be working on for the week, giving us a sheet with all of them clearly listed.  I’d seen this before obviously, but I have to tell you that from a parent’s perspective, I really like how it has a spot to indicate how hard (or easy) a particular activity is each time you practice it.  This really helps our vision therapists know when it’s time to provide additional help or when they need to bump up the difficulty on certain things.

And that’s that.  We were off with our bag of home practice supplies and armed with a binder full of activities for the week.  I was both excited and nervous.  I’m anxious to get started with helping Nolan out, and also nervous about how I’m actually going to keep him engaged at home.  More on that and on how our home practice is progressing soon!

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

Schedule An Appointment

Vision Therapy for an Optometrist’s Son

Writing this blog post is a humbling moment in my career. As I write, I feel like a terrible father and optometrist but I will keep writing in the hopes my family’s journey will help others.

All day I see patients and discuss, in great detail, the visual or physical symptoms they experience that affect their enjoyment of life as well as their continued health. I, and the other doctors here at Highline, are especially passionate about targeting potential visual skills deficiencies that can keep kids and adults from learning efficiently. For some people, these binocular vision issues can cause some pretty debilitating physical symptoms like eyestrain, headaches, and double vision.  For others, the cues are often subtler and are easily missed or written off as other things like “boyishness”.

We are passionate about helping people properly develop these visual skills because not doing so limits their potential. When learning is especially difficult or hurts, kids don’t want to succeed in school, they just want to survive and graduate high school. And they definitely don’t want to go to college to pursue an interest that might otherwise feed their soul. When near work hurts or is difficult for adults, they adapt to their existing capabilities and change their career goals to match what they can do comfortably. In short, when learning is difficult or painful, the future becomes more limited than it should be and that’s just not okay.

What I Missed: The Signs

Which brings me back to why I feel like a terrible father: I overlooked some signs that my son had a visual skills deficiency and needed Vision Therapy.

Now, to be fair to myself and my wife, our son, Nolan, is six years old and this is about the age we, as optometrists, are able to spot visual deficiencies in our young patients. It’s when kids begin learning in a school environment that visual issues often present themselves. In our case, Nolan was learning in the classroom just fine and his reading skills are progressing at above his age level. In addition, some of his processing skills seem very advanced (Can I tell you that he’s building Lego sets intended for 16 year olds?). But, here’s what we started noticing:

  • He was a bit clumsy: it’s as if he had trouble recognizing how his body moved in relation to his surroundings.
  • He was fidgety when doing homework: he squirmed in his seat and picked at his clothing and otherwise, would not sit still.
  • He has always avoided team sports: fearing that he “won’t be any good.”

After some discussions with my wife, we decided to just pull the trigger and put Nolan in Vision Therapy right now. The worst thing that could happen would be that – as his eyes and brain are trained to work together at a higher level – he might need more advanced Lego sets!

Some of the visual skills I had checked with Nolan at his exams actually didn’t look too reduced, but I knew that we often get a lot more information after scheduling a screening appointment in the Vision Therapy office.  It was at this first Vision Therapy appointment that our suspicions were confirmed: Nolan’s eye tracking skills were very underdeveloped.  He seemed to have trouble with some basic visually guided motor skills, and I was astonished at the effort that some of the testing took for him.

Here We Go!

So here we are, beginning Vision Therapy and it is my intention to bring you along with us so you can see what Vision Therapy is like from a parent’s perspective. Follow Highline Vision Center on Facebook or Instagram to see when this blog is updated.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

Schedule An Appointment

What is Vision Therapy

Vision is much more than just seeing 20/20. If there is a vision disorder unrelated to clarity, it may make working, learning, sports and hobbies significantly more difficult. Struggling students and hardworking adults may fall behind if their visual demands are overwhelming.

Vision therapy is appropriate for treatment of tracking and reading fluency problems, poor focus and/ or attention, visual processing issues, convergence insufficiency, traumatic brain injury, strabismus, amblyopia, and many more vision conditions that can be present at any age.

Vision therapy is also very valuable training for enhancement of sports performance. A customized visual training program will improve visual abilities and train the eyes and brain to work together more effectively.

SYMPTOMS OF VISUAL SYSTEM STRESS

There are many signs of a visual system not working optimally. Inefficient visual skills or those that have not properly developed may result in:

  • Headaches: Pain or discomfort, often concentrated around the eyes or across the forehead, but also may occur in the back of the head.
  • Discomfort or fatigue: Tension, stress or weariness (especially concentrated around the eyes) after visually demanding work.
  • Double vision: Seeing two images when there should only be one.
  • Suppression: The brain will ignore or “turn off” the signal from one eye in order to avoid confusing information.
  • Poor coordination: Deficient eye-hand coordination often reveals itself through poor handwriting, general clumsiness, or poor sports performance.
  • Performance below expectations: In school, work, hobbies or sports.

VISUAL SKILLS

Skills we develop through vision therapy include:

  • Visual acuity:  The ability of an eye to see clearly, both at distance and near.  Vision is much more than being able to see 20/20.
  • Binocularity: The ability of both eyes to work seamlessly together and send identical visual information to the brain simultaneously.
  • Tracking: The ability to efficiently and accurately track along a line of print. This is a crucial skill for reading fluency.
  • Focus/near visual acuity: The ability to keep print clear for near work. This skill includes the ability to change focus between distance and near quickly, efficiently and without experiencing blur.
  • Attention: The ability to mentally maintain focus on a task with ease for an extended period of time.
  • Depth perception: 3D vision, or the ability to judge the distance between objects in three dimensional space.
  • Visual information processing: This includes a number of skills, all of which influence whether a person can make sense of what they’ve seen. Visual memory is one important example of these skills.  It is essential for accurate spelling and remembering what one has read.
  • Visualization: Being able to create a mental image.

A few examples include forming a picture in your mind of what you are reading or imagining yourself performing well in an upcoming race. This skill is crucial for enjoyment of reading, efficient learning and sports performance.

CUSTOMIZED THERAPY

Our behavioral optometrists focus on each person as a whole and the various stressors that may affect their visual system. Through a structured program of vision therapy, we work with patients to develop the crucial visual skills necessary to reach academic, athletic and professional goals.

Vision therapy programs typically consist of 45 minutes of in-office therapy per week with assignment of additional home practice activities. Specific visual activities will be prescribed for the patient depending on the skills needing improvement. This allows for specialized care to meet each patient’s needs and constant modification to support achievement of desired goals.

If you have any questions regarding vision therapy, please feel free to reach out to us. We are dedicated to developing visual skills to allow everyone to reach their potential. Highline Center for Vision Performance stands ready to offer additional information and solutions.

Ready to Schedule An Appointment?

The Highline Vision Center team is looking forward to seeing you soon. Our practice utilizes state-of-the-art technology to deliver personal and comprehensive eye care for your entire family.

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