What is Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy is a structured treatment process that utilizes skilled therapists, specialized equipment and a carefully planned progression of activities to modify the visual system at the neurological level. Vision therapy improves the speed, flexibility, endurance and accuracy of the visual system’s accommodative response (eye focusing), vergence response (eye teaming) and oculomotor skills (eye tracking). Vision therapy also helps develop higher level visual skills, such as visual processing speed and visually-guided motor responses (visual reaction speed or eye-hand coordination).
Vision therapy is a treatment method that develops, maintains and restores visual skills that are required to perform visual tasks during a typical day. These visual skills include:
- Accommodation (eye focusing)
- Binocular Vision (eye teaming)
- Oculomotor Skills (eye tracking)
- Visual Perception (extracting information from visually-presented material)
- Visual Processing (quickly being able to ‘make sense’ of one’s visual environment)
Vision therapy systematically eliminates visual barriers to clear, comfortable, binocular vision while simultaneously developing the proper visual coordination required to maintain stable visual skills throughout life. This process is most effective when overseen by an optometrist with residency-training in vision therapy to ensure proper diagnosis and treatment of your vision conditions. Vision therapy may be used in isolation or in conjunction with other treatments, such as prism glasses or strabismus surgery. Specific recommendations are determined during a Binocular Vision Assessment.
Who Can Benefit from Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy is often times the best treatment option for patients who experience deficits with eye tracking, eye teaming, eye focusing and visual processing. By addressing the underlying vision conditions, patients often experience significant improvements in visual tasks, such as reading, working on the computer for extended periods of time, scanning of the visual environment (while driving or playing sports for example) and performing under timed conditions.
Vision therapy can help people at many stages of life. Vision therapy is an effective treatment modality for many vision conditions in both children and adults. Vision therapy is a type of treatment that you may need if you experience:
- Discomfort (visual/eye strain, headaches, etc) during visual tasks, such as reading or computer work
- Blurred or fluctuating vision while performing near tasks (reading, computer, gaming, etc) or when transitioning focus between distance and near (such as when taking notes in class)
- Double vision, even if experienced occasionally,
- Tracking difficulties that may impair reading fluency (skipping words, re-reading lines, loss of place, etc)
- Impaired depth perception that causes poor eye-hand coordination and makes a person appear ‘clumsy’
- Difficulties processing visual information, making it difficult to keep up with the pace of life, work or school
Individuals in Supportive Therapies
(OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY, PHYSICAL THERAPY, SPEECH/LANGUAGE THERAPY)
Vision impacts more than your ability to read 20/20 on the eye chart. Eye tracking, eye teaming, eye focusing and visual processing deficits impact one’s functional abilities. These vision conditions negatively affect visual-motor tasks (eye-hand skills), visual-vestibular tasks (balance & mobility) and even language processing (visual-auditory speech integration).
It is important that vision conditions be treated to minimize their impact on functional abilities. Additionally, untreated vision conditions can stall or prevent progress with other therapies such as occupational therapy, physical therapy or speech-language therapy. Integrating a vision therapy program at Advanced Vision Therapy Center as part of a comprehensive treatment plan can improve progress and overall efficiency of concurrent therapies.
Even if a vision problem is not suspected, it is important that those participating in occupational therapy, physical therapy or speech therapy have a Binocular Vision Assessment. Deficits within the motor, vestibular or auditory systems put more demand on the visual system (the person must rely heavily on their visual system). This means that even subtle vision problems can have a significant impact on overall function. These vision problems will not be identified during vision screenings at the pediatrician’s office or at school, during a routine eye examination, or by an occupational therapist, physical therapist or speech-language therapist. These vision problems should be identified and diagnosed by an optometrist with residency training in neuro-optometry, binocular vision and vision therapy. Otherwise they can be easily misdiagnosed or overlooked and continue to impede progress.
People with a Signifigant Developmental History
Several vision conditions occur at higher rates for people with developmental conditions. While having autism, cerebral palsy, trisomy 21 or developmental delay does not mean that you have a vision condition, it does carry a higher risk. Given the role vision plays in overall development, it is especially important that all vision conditions be detected and treated. Vision conditions of concern for people with developmental conditions include:
- Significant refractive error (high prescription)
- Amblyopia (lazy eye)
- Strabismus (eye turn)
- Accommodative dysfunction (eye focusing)
- Binocular vision dysfunction (eye teaming)
- Oculomotor dysfunction (eye tracking)
- Visual perceptual & processing deficits (extracting visual information)
While glasses are important to establish clear vision, they do not treat all vision conditions. Vision therapy is extremely effective in treating many conditions that impact functional vision. Providing clear, comfortable, consistent vision allows someone to be more successful in their visual environment. Vision therapy can be a critical part of a greater plan to help an individual reach their potential.
Children or Adults with a History of Vision Problems
(EX: AMBLYOPIA, STRABISMUS)
Vision therapy can be used as the sole treatment, or in conjunction with other treatments, to address longstanding vision conditions. There are many vision conditions that have lifelong impacts if left untreated. One does not ‘outgrow’ conditions of eye tracking, eye teaming, eye focusing or visual processing deficits.
Conditions, such as amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus (eye turn), often benefit from vision therapy as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. For example, not all cases of amblyopia can be treated with glasses and patching alone. Inclusion of vision therapy addresses the underlying binocular vision deficits that result in blurred vision. More recent research has shown that amblyopia can be treated in both children and adults when vision therapy is included as part of the treatment process.
Vision therapy is often utilized in the treatment of strabismus (eye turn). In some cases, vision therapy can be used as the sole treatment for an intermittent strabismus (the eye turns on occasion). In other cases, vision therapy can be used to support a more successful recovery following strabismus surgery (similar to the use of physical therapy after orthopedic surgery).
Which Conditions are Treated with Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy may be used in isolation or in conjunction with other treatments to successfully remediate many vision conditions. These conditions include:
- Accommodative Dysfunction (Eye Focusing Deficits)
- Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)
- Binocular Vision Dysfunction (Eye Teaming Deficits)
- Convergence Insufficiency
- Oculomotor Dysfunction (Eye Tracking Deficits)
- Strabismus (Eye Turn)
- Vergence Dysfunction (Convergence Insufficiency, Convergence Excess, Divergence Deficits)
- Visual Perceptual Deficits (extracting information from visually-presented material)
- Visual Processing Deficits (quickly being able to ‘make sense’ of one’s visual environment