Who Can Vision Therapy Help?
The following provides information about some of the many conditions which can be positively affected by Vision Therapy:
Eye Movements
Eye movements are critical to most everything we do, from keeping our place while reading to catching a ball to parking our car. There are many types of eye movements, including smooth pursuits, hopping movements called saccades, and fixation. Optometric vision therapy works to improve all of them.
Amblyopia
Amblyopia is the big word that means one eye doesn't see as clearly as the other, even while wearing glasses or contact lenses, and in the absence of eye disease. Amblyopia is usually the result of one eye needing a stronger glasses prescription than the other or one eye turning in a different direction than the other or a combination of the two.
Traumatic Brain Injury
A Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) describes inflammation in the brain as a result of an injury or illness. A concussion is always a TBI, though not all TBI's are concussions. Some may be due to inflammation such as from "Long COVID" or from a whiplash type injury.
Learning-Related Vision
When vision interferes with learning, the condition results in a learning-related vision challenge. Learning-related vision problems can be due to convergence insufficiency, eye movement issues, amblyopia, strabismus, TBI, double vision, or any combination thereof. In addition, processing visual information, such as knowing right from left and remembering what we see, impacts learning and may need to be addressed.
Prism Glasses
Doctors of Optometry may prescribe eyeglasses for a variety of different purposes and needs. Most often, glasses help patients see details more clearly. However, optometrists may prescribe small amounts of prism, specific tints, or even a bit of magnification to make navigating the world easier. In these cases, glasses might be prescribed for specific uses, such as while reading or while shopping. Your optometrist has had extensive education and training to prescribe such glasses. Optometrists are the only licensed medical professional with such ability.
Convergence Insufficiency
Convergence insufficiency occurs when both eyes aren't pointing to the same place while looking up close. This causes someone to either see double or else ignore one image which may result in losing place to read, skipping words or lines, and eye fatigue.
Strabismus
Strabismus is the umbrella term used when when eye doesn't look in the same direction as the other one, either some of the time or all of the time. One eye might look higher or lower than the other, inward or outward, or a combination of the two. Esotropia describes and inward turn. Exotropia is an outward turn. Hypertropia is an upward turn and hypotropia is a downward turn.
Diplopia
Diplopia is the big word that means a person is seeing a double image. Diplopia can occur when each eye is looking in a different direction, as in strabismus (see above). Diplopia can also occur within just one eye due to a cataract or an injury or disease of the cornea.
Sports Vision Improvement
Because vision guides our action, athletic performance relies on clear sight, healthy eyes, good visual processing and excellent binocular vision skills! By maximizing eye movement ability, peripheral awareness, depth perception, clarity of sight, and visual perceptual skills, athletes can improve performance even if they are already performing at a high level.
Binocular Vision Dysfunction/Disorder
Binocular Vision Dysfunction/Disorder is an umbrella term for a variety of conditions that make using your two eyes together challenging. The conditions are listed in the boxes above, including strabismus and convergence insufficiency. When eyes work together, they guide and lead us, but when they don't work together, then interfere with each other and make things worse! Single, clear, comfortable binocular vision allows optimum performance in nearly all tasks.