Top 7 Tips to Treat Eye Conditions Using Vision Therapy

Unfortunately, few people have ever heard of vision therapy. It is the best kept secret in eye care. The few people who know anything about it think it is the Bates Method. But Bates is outdated. This method only focus on the eye muscles. Today, we know, in addition, vision therapy works by retraining the way the brain processes visual imagery. It is more like visual biofeedback than vision callisthenics. Using today’s methods, we get better, more permanent results than Bates did. Today’s vision therapy helps treat many vision-impairing eye conditions. Here are some of the tips you can consider to treat your eye conditions.

1. Traumatic Brain Injury

Some people who sustain head injuries in auto or other accidents largely recover, except that they experience blurred or double vision. They are often told they have to live with it, but vision therapy can often help them see better.

2. Athletic Performance

Keep your eye on the ball is standard advice in baseball, basketball, tennis, volleyball and many other sports. The problem is that sometimes even world-class athletes can’t do it well enough to remain competitive. With the help of vision therapy, they can. In a study, vision therapy was conducted on a group of professional tennis players. Lights were flashed at them and time how long it takes them to respond. At first it may take them one-tenth a second. But after a while, they start responding in one one-hundredth of a second, ten times faster. The difference between a tenth and a hundredth of a second may not sound like much, but when you are playing a professional tennis, it is the difference between seeing the ball leave your opponent’s racquet and not seeing it until it is already on your side of the court.

3. Balance

Good vision is critical for good balance because vision, our dominant sense, provides the brain with a great deal of information about the body’s position. A group of 20 male and female students were tested on their balance and then trained them in Eyerobics, a visual-skills training program that uses vision therapy exercises to improve depth perception, peripheral vision, reaction time and spatial judgement. After Eyerobics training, the researchers retested the participant’s balance and found significant improvement.

4. Crossed Eyes, Lazy Eyes And Binocular Disorder

In addition to causing cosmetic problems – the eyes look funny – these disorders interfere with reading and close-focus work and may lead to blindness of the weaker eye. They are also surprisingly common. According to a report in the Journal of the American Optometric Association, about 5 percent of schoolchildren have strabismic eyes, and up to 8 percent have some degree of amblyopia. Each year in United States, the National Society to Prevent Blindness estimates 127,000 new diagnoses of amblyopia. Six months of vision therapy produces substantial, long-lasting improvements of these conditions in about 75 percent of cases.

5. Learning Disabilities

Many children diagnosed with learning disabilities or dyslexia does not really have them. They often have learning-related vision problems, and vision therapy can help them – if they are diagnosed and treated by a behavioural optometrist. Unfortunately, many are not. In a study, with three children, two age eight and one ten, who had severe problems with reading. One had been diagnosed as dyslexic. After two months of vision therapy, the children’s reading abilities improved dramatically

6. Focusing Problems

Normal eyes hold objects in focus and automatically refocus when they shift from one object to another that is closer or farther away. People with focusing problems cannot do this, and their constant struggle to keep their eyes focused leads to chronic eyes stress that often causes headaches, fatigue, double or blurry vision and a burning sensation in the eyes. In a study, 96 people with focusing problems were treated with vision therapy. Fifty-three percent were cured. Symptoms were significantly reduced, though not eliminated, in 43 percent. Only 4 percent showed no benefit.

7. Jerking Eye

This condition interferes with smooth eye movement, causing the eyes to jerk from point to point. It impairs reading ability and anything else that requires fluid eye movements. Vision therapy usually can cure ocular-motor problems.