What is Vision Therapy and How Optometrists help using Vision Therapy in GTA?
Eyesight is one of the important organs as it helps us to perceive and communicate with in our environment. So it is very essential to take utmost care of your eyes as stress and injury can damage your eyesight. Sometimes certain eye conditions can gradually lead to vision problems. Vision therapy helps treat these eye problems and provide comfort by improving visual skills and efficiency.
What is Vision Therapy?
Vision Therapy is a behavioral approach to correct certain eye conditions and to enhance visual abilities. It is non-surgical and the visual activities and drills are supervised by an optometrist. As the visual problems vary from person to person, vision therapy is a customized vision training program for both young adults and children. As part of vision training, the patients need to perform reinforcement exercises to improve their vision. The optometrists also use training glasses or specialized lenses, filters, prisms, patches, balance boards, electronic targets during the training.
What are the different eye conditions that affect vision in people?
People with a 20/20 vision and who can perfectly read an eye chart can suffer from medical conditions namely:
· Amblyopia (lazy eye) — In this eye condition, vision is affected due to lack of proper connection between the brain and the eye.
· Strabismus (cross eye) — This is an eye condition where the person is unable to align both the eyes.
· Presbyopia (focusing problems) — In this visual condition, the eyes of the person fail to make focusing adjustments.
· Oculomotor Dysfunction (eye movement dysfunction) — When a person is unable to accurately control the movement of the eyes; the condition is termed as Oculomotor Dysfunction.
· Binocular Dysfunction — In this condition, the line of sight of one eye differs from that of another.
· Visual Perception Dysfunction — This is a condition where the brain is not able to process the information taken in through the eyes.
How does Optometrists help using vision therapy in Oakville?
Unlike ophthalmologists who treat eye conditions through medications and surgical procedures, optometrists improve vision through eye exercises. At first a comprehensive eye examination is carried out and depending on the eye condition, the optometrist suggests exercises and even uses various devices to enhance eyesight. For instance, through vision therapy lazy eye, a neuro-developmental vision condition that causes blurred vision could be successfully treated. These exercises and training procedures are initially carried out at the vision therapy center and later you have to do the exercises and activities at home.
According to the American Optometric Association (AOA), up to 80% of a child’s learning in school is through vision. Some children have normal visual acuity (20/20 vision) but they struggle in their studies. Vision therapy is found to help children with convergence insufficiency (CI), a visual disorder where the eyes do not function together. This makes learning difficult. By correcting CI and other eye conditions, reading becomes easier for children.
The application of vision therapy in sports has brought about great improvements in the performance of players. Take the case of Larry Fitzgerald, an American football wide receiver in Arizona Cardinals history, for instance. He is the greatest advocate of sports vision therapy and has stated several times that he owes his success and achievements to vision therapy. According to him, “I was fortunate to have a grandfather who was an optometrist. Vision therapy was something that we routinely did to strengthen our eyes and give us better focus. I was fortunate that he could teach me techniques that are still paying dividends for me to this day.”
So in the case of any issues with vision, always make it a practice to consult an optometrist. Sometimes through eye exercises the issues could be resolved. Moreover, if you are staying in Ontario, for instance, do vision therapy in Ontario itself, as only an optometrist could suggest the total time required for improving or even eliminating certain eye conditions.