Optometric Vision Therapy
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What is Optometric Vision Therapy?
Optometric Vision Therapy is a safe, drug-free series of lessons conducted under the supervision of a Developmental/Neuro-Optometrist by an experienced Vision Therapist to teach a person how to use their eyes in the most quick, efficient, comfortable, and automatic way possible.
The goal of Optometric Vision Therapy is not to strengthen eye muscles because your eye muscles are already incredibly strong. Instead, vision therapy aims to retrain incorrectly learned skills of vision through the recently-understood concept of neuroplasticity. While visual acuity, (the "20/20" part of vision), requires glasses to improve, visual skills such as tracking together along a line of text must be learned during development. These skills can also be improved later in life at any age.
Who Would Benefit from Optometric Vision Therapy?
It is estimated that 1 in 10 people have a vision problem severe enough to affect their learning in school, but school vision screenings can miss up to half of these problems. A comprehensive vision exam with a Developmental Optometrist checks all aspects of eye health, vision and visual skills which ensures you or your child are not struggling unnecessarily with an undiagnosed vision problem.
Common symptoms that can be helped with vision therapy are:
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Headaches with near work
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Words run together when reading
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Burning, itching or watery eyes
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Skipping/repeating lines when reading
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Tilting head or closing one eye when reading
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Difficulty copying from the board
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Avoiding near work or reading
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Omitting small words when reading
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Writing uphill or downhill
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Misaligning digits/columns of numbers
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Poor reading comprehension
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Holding books or near work very close to eyes
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Short attention span with near work
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Difficulty completing assignments on time
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Saying “I Can’t” before trying something
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Clumsiness and knocking things over
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Poor understanding of time
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Poor understanding of space
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Loses belongings or misplaces things
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Forgets things easily
What Types of Active Optometric Vision Therapies are There?
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VT1: Basic Visual Skills
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VT2: Vision and Learning
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VT3: Amblyopia or Strabismus
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VT4: Special Needs
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ABI: Acquired Brain Injury
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RIT: Reflex Integration Therapy
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SYN: Syntonic Phototherapy
What is VT1: Basic Visual Skills?
In a majority of cases, a person will struggle with basic visual skills of eye aiming, focusing, gazing, tracking and coordinating with hands and body. VT1 is designed to help this person resolve these problems to allow them to decrease effort, increase efficiency and improve comfort so this person does not need to work so hard and use so much of their attention to perform visual activities like reading, writing, and navigating their world.
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A typical VT1 Program is 28-32 weeks long with sessions once a week for 1 hour along with 15 minutes of home support on the days between sessions. Progress checks are every 10-12 sessions, 1-month post-therapy, 3 months post-therapy, and 6 months post-therapy to ensure that the information is being learned as planned.
What is VT2: Vision and Learning?
In other cases, in addition to struggling with basic vision skills, a person may have difficulty processing the information that enters their brain. Some common symptoms of an undiagnosed vision-related learning problem can include difficulty paying attention in school, problems understanding instructions, works hard in school but is not getting good grades, strain, headaches, fatigue with near tasks and is very intelligent but not able to live up to their potential. This program teaches the basic skills and how to understand the patterns and details that make it to the brain through the eyes.
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A typical VT2 Program is 32-36 weeks long, which include 1-2 one-hour sessions per week along with 15 minutes of home support on the days between the sessions. Progress checks are every 10-12 sessions, 1-month post-therapy, 3 months post-therapy and 6 months post-therapy to ensure that the information is being learned as planned.
What is VT3: Amblyopia or Strabismus?
Some people, who have experienced significant visual stress at an early age, adapt by shutting off one eye to avoid visual discomfort, confusion, and/or inaccuracies. This adaptation is detrimental to the person in that they lose the ability to share vision from each eye, cross their brain easily and perceive true depth perception. Common treatments for these conditions involve patching or atropine drops. This does not help the person to fully learn how to use their eyes as a team and can sometimes cause double vision that is even more stressful to the person. Active Vision Therapy teaches the eyes and brain to work well together to allow for better accuracy, endurance and comfort along with better eye function and alignment.
What is VT4: Special Needs?
Since vision is learned during the early milestones, anyone who has not developed as expected has a higher risk of having vision problems. For instance, people with developmental delays tend to have difficulty processing and responding to information from their senses, communicating their thoughts accurately and interacting with others. These difficulties are often masked by behaviors to help them cope with sensory overload in the world around them like stimming, avoidance, and fidgeting. Vision is frequently at the forefront of their difficulties and can be improved drastically with well-timed treatments. These improvements can include improving eye contact, decreasing stimming (such as staring at spinning objects or light), having the ability to make more stable fixations and tracking and improving the attention on visual targets. Achieving these goals can help the person to feel less overwhelmed by visual stimuli and to interact with their world more comfortably.
A typical VT4 Program is 32-40 weeks long, which include 1-2 one-hour sessions per week along with 15 minutes of home support on the days between the sessions. Progress checks are every 10-12 sessions, 1-month post-therapy, 3 months post therapy and 6 months post- therapy to ensure that the information is being learned as planned.
What is ABI: Acquired Brain Injury?
A person who has suffered a brain injury or trauma that has affected the visual system can no longer think, move, and see as before. Vision should be automatic, but with acquired brain injury, it isn’t. Every function of the eyes - moving together, focusing, etc. - requires great concentration and effort by the person affected by brain injury. What used to be automatic, like focusing on an object, becomes an arduous task.
What is RIT: Reflex Integration Training?
Sports Vision Therapy gives athletes the competitive edge by using sensory-motor integration techniques to enhance the neurological connections between the brain and the body.
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Developmental Reflex Patterns are the foundation to develop motor, sensory and cognitive skills. They are a set of involuntary movements that are in place to protect the fetus, help in the birthing process and guide the baby through developmental milestones so they can efficiently learn the lessons of movement. The milestones covered in this program include learning to fight gravity (balance), belly crawling, creeping on all fours and eventually walking without support. Without these Reflex Patterns, more advanced skills such as skipping, riding a bike, handwriting and even reading are difficult or slow to develop. Eventually these Reflex Patterns should become integrated into more mature motor patterns.
What is SYN: Syntonic Phototherapy?
Syntonics or Syntonic Phototherapy involves prescribing certain light avelengths through the eyes to balance the brain and body and to improve treatment and healing times in a large variety of conditions.
