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Vision Therapy

Vision Therapy

Common Conditions That Vision Therapy Helps

Vision is more than just the letters you read on a chart. To most efficiently function, the eyes need to see clearly, the muscles need to move in unison, both eyes need to properly align and adjust their focus together, and the signal between eye and brain needs to be efficient. At any point between eye, eye muscles, and brain, there can be issues that impede your best visual function. That’s where vision therapy can help. Therapy helps build those essential eye to brain connections to improve visual efficiency.

Common causes of a disrupted visual system include:

  • concussion or injury
  • stroke
  • stress or high demand visual environment (long days on computers are a great example of this!)
  • eye turns (strabismus) or lazy eye (amblyopia)

 

In children, vision therapy can be especially helpful to address common eye muscle inefficiencies that result in difficulty reading, reversing letters or numbers, losing your place when you read, double vision, or blurry vision and headaches at the end of a school day. Research shows that an estimated 20% of all school-aged children have a vision issue that will affect their ability to succeed in the classroom. While eyeglasses or corrective lenses can correct many vision problems, some issues are more complex. Vision therapy is a highly effective non-surgical means of treating many common visual problems.

Better Eyes for Better Grades? Vision therapy can improve academic performance as well. While vision therapy is not meant to treat learning disabilities, it can lead to improved performance in school. Many children with vision deficits have trouble focusing on reading and other classroom material. This can inhibit their learning, delay their progress and prevent them from performing to the best of their ability.

Once visual problems have been resolved, parents and teachers will have a clearer picture of a student’s challenges and abilities. What Is Vision Therapy? Vision therapy is like individualized physical therapy for the eyes. Some vision therapy uses specialized exercises. Other programs require the use of lenses, filters, and other visual instruments. The goal is not merely to correct a cosmetic issue but to optimize the entire visual system.

Dr. Alecia Barnes utilizes the latest technology to create a custom vision therapy program designed to “teach” the eyes and the parts of the brain that control the vision system to work as they should for clear, comfortable vision. Vision therapy can resolve many vision problems on its own. In other circumstances, vision therapy completed before or after surgery can help improve the outcome.

Video Introducing Vision Therapy To Parents