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Vision Training Frequently Asked Questions About Vision Training
What does Vision Training involve? What does it do? In vision training we use different lenses and prisms to help you discover how to use your vision more efficiently. We use some lenses that help you understand how to relax your focus and others that encourage stimulation of your focus, so you can develop more flexibility. The same concept works with prisms that influence where you look. We use specially designed lenses, filters and prisms to help you discover how to use the two eyes together most effectively. In vision training you learn how to control the flexibility, accuracy and range of freedom of all eye movements including fixation, pursuits, focus and eye teaming. In the instance of visual perceptual lags, we set up challenges so that the basic skills can be mastered, allowing appropriate development of skills, strategies and understanding of visual perceptual abilities towards more advanced visual thinking. With improved visual understanding a child is better prepared to benefit from educational methods. Vision training in our office is normally completed one-on-one with the vision therapist. In addition, homework needs to be completed at home as reinforcement of what is learned during the office therapy sessions. Commitment to the therapy program, and maintaining a schedule of weekly visits, is important in the success of the program. For more information visit Vision Training.
My
child tested as having very good eyesight and healthy eyes after having a
standard eye exam with an eye chart. Should I still investigate the possibility
of a visual problem?
Isn’t this something that we can take care of with glasses? Glasses can help more than just eyesight problems. But if your child has had vision training recommended to them then the option of solving the problem with glasses has normally been explored to its fullest extent. Children who present with difficulties that can normally only be remedied with vision training will often benefit from glasses as well as vision training.
What causes something like this? Some eye conditions occur in association with disease processes. If this seemed likely then this would have been reported as a possibility at the time of the optometric examination. If disease is not the cause there are commonly other possible causes, such as:
Some visual problems appear genetic or at least have contributing hereditary factors such as strabismus (crossed-eyes, wandering eyes). Most are a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental influences, though according to most recent studies environment appears to be playing a larger and larger role in our developmental make-up. Sometimes our vision becomes less comfortable as our eye control (such as focusing and eye-teaming) skills have become more conscious and tiring, particularly when we are not performing on a task as well as we should. If we demand more of these skills than we can accomplish, we can develop sub-conscious adaptations to cope - often to our detriment - similar to a person who tries to concentrate harder and finds themselves less successful at performing a task such as reading.
Can’t we just do this at home? Vision training programs are individualised and sequenced for the patient, and professional guidance and frequent monitoring is required for success. You also need to be able to modify certain procedures when they cannot be done efficiently or effectively. When attempted by patients without guidance, poor visual habits may actually be reinforced. Trying to do vision training exclusively at home is like walking into a classroom and working out from notes and exercise books how to do mathematics. You have no idea of the sequence of the exercises, whether you are getting the right answer, when to increase the difficulty of the tasks and whether you are tackling the tasks the right way. Once a professional guides you, it becomes reasonable to reinforce what you have learned on your own.
Why haven’t I heard of vision training before? Vision training or vision training is a speciality procedure. Not all optometrists are trained in it. Patients are often referred to our practice by other professionals who are conversant with vision training, or by other patients who interact with people who have similar difficulties.
Although Vision training is currently an Optometric speciality, it is actually an outgrowth of orthoptics, developed initially by physicians. As physicians became more focused on eyeglasses, medication , and surgery, the benefits of orthoptics were taught to fewer and fewer practitioners. However, optometrists in the mid 1900's took from orthoptics and pioneered the development of vision training.
Is there any guarantee that vision training will work? Since we are dealing with human function, there can be no guarantee of absolute success. I believe that you will get out of vision training what you put into it. Those patients who are motivated, and who are consistent with their office visits, typically do very well. While vision training has been extremely effective for many individuals, no guarantee as to the effectiveness in any specific case can be made. Patient outcomes can vary widely from individual to individual, and as such, no warranty is stated or implied.
Many training programs can be accomplished in 15-20 sessions. If the difficulties are severe or complicated by involving more than one area of visual skills or abilities then the program time will often be longer, and you will have been informed. It is fine to do sessions on two consecutive days, so that you can stay on schedule. The length of the therapy program varies with the condition treated. For example, a three year-old child with amblyopia, or "lazy eye", might have the better eye patched for a short period of time. An eight year old with strabismus "crossed eye", may require therapy for a period of a year to gain BOTH cosmetic and visual benefits (the two eyes will appear straight AND will be used as a binocular team for normal vision). A 30 year-old computer programmer may require three to six months to solve a visual problem causing significant eye strain. A 30 year-old with strabismus that had two or more unsuccessful surgeries as a child might require two or more years of therapy. There is an informal evaluation after 10 sessions to assess progress and to plan future visits. Home vision training provides reinforcement and support. However, if you don’t do your homework, you should still keep your office appointments. If you were a student in school, you wouldn’t skip a class because you didn’t complete your homework.
Will my child still have "reading lenses" after vision training? The type of prescription that is commonly supplied to a child for near work helps preserve the gains that the child has made through vision training.
Are the changes from vision training permanent? Most healthy vision training patients enjoy long term resolution of their visual problems. Generalising the newly acquired visual abilities to the activities of daily life allows these new visual skills to become self-reinforcing. The extent to which the new visual abilities acquired through vision training last are related to a couple of key factors. If vision training visits are consistent, and the skills are reinforced, then they should operate subconsciously and automatically at a reflex level. If maintenance activities have been assigned at the end of training (as they often are), then monitoring yourself at periodic intervals will help you maintain your abilities. If glasses have been prescribed, their proper usage will be important in maintaining your level of improvement. Ultimately, you may need a booster or tune-up. This typically involves a maximum of a few sessions if monitoring has occurred.
Is there scientific evidence that vision training works? Yes. Studies on vision training are on a par with the published literature in parallel rehabilitative interventions such as physical therapy and occupational therapy. Furthermore, the data which supports vision training is considerably more impressive than the data which has substantiated other forms of visual intervention before these were put into public use by eyecare practitioners. Vision Therapy references, research and scientific studies
Why Is Vision training a Well-kept Secret? The media rarely brings in the cameras. Most of us have seen dramatic camera
footage of people struggling in physical therapy, being taught to walk again
after a stroke or other traumatic accident. Watching a child doing vision
training would not make such a dramatic picture--most of the action is happening
inside the child's own eyes and brain and can't be picked up by the eye of a
camera.
Why would another eye professional such as an eye specialist say that vision training won’t help? It is unfortunate that many eye professionals are not trained in vision training. Progressive eye professionals who follow current research in learning, neurology and physiological rather than just pathological (disease) visual processes understand the potential role of vision training. The public needs to be aware that ophthalmologists are not the ultimate authorities in all areas of visual function. Ophthalmologists are often brilliant surgeons and normally the highest authorities on eye disease, but as a rule they rarely study subject areas such as, visual perceptual processing, accommodation and vision training. Some ophthalmologists concede this. In the medical journal, Transactions of the American Ophthalmological
Society, eye muscle surgeon and researcher David Guyton, M.D., states: "We
[ophthalmologists] have probably abdicated the study of accommodation and
convergence to the optometric profession. A perusal of the literature will
reveal that most of the advances in this area are being made in the optometric
institutions by vision scientists who use definitions and terms with which we
are not even familiar."
Is
it true that there are certain conditions, like lazy eye, where the patient is
too old, or it's too late to intervene with vision training?
Why is Binocular Depth Perception So Important? Depth perception is an important aspect of normal, healthy vision; a result of good stereoscopic vision; the ability to visually perceive depth and three dimensional space; the ability to visually judge relative distances between objects; a perceptual skill that aids accurate movement in three-dimensional space.The web site of the American Academy of Ophthalmology stated in August, 1996: "many occupations are not open to people who have good vision in one eye only [that means no stereo vision, no binocular depth perception]" Here are a few examples of occupations that depend heavily on stereo vision:
The loss of binocular depth perception means more to someone than just losing
the possibility of being a professional athlete or dentist. Loss of binocular
vision can decrease quality of life as well as life choices. Reaching out to
shake another person's hand or threading a needle and sewing benefit from depth
perception. Ask anyone who has had a head injury and lost depth perception about
stepping off a curb or step and they will tell you about the challenges they now
have to overcome.
Irlen Tinted Lenses are not a substitute for vision training, though some
people feel they can cope better with their visual difficulties. Many of the
symptoms that wearers of Irlen Tinted Lenses have overlap with visual
dysfunction such as instability of print, loss of place when reading, and
difficulty concentrating when reading. Helen Irlen, in 1991, wrote that
individuals interested in being screened for Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome
(colour influenced readers) should first see a vision specialist for a complete
visual examination.
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