Putting 2012 to Bed

As we are closing up 2012, I feel like there is a lot of great things that have happened this year. From our children reading better, to catching touchdowns, to expanding peripheral awareness, to new office gadgets, to a new website, to this new blog! Here at Optometric Physicians, we have a lot to be thankful for.

Thank you to all for being apart of our journey. You have allowed us to be apart of your families, and I thank you for all your hard work and dedication.




Today I wanted to touch on the most popular blogs this year:

1. Our series on Perceptual Skills:

I.Visual Discrimination

II. Visual Memory

III.Spatial Relations

IV. Form Constancy

V. Sequential Memory

VI. Figure Ground

2. How to Make Vision Therapy Home Exercises Fun! & Fun Home Exercises! Continued....: We all know Home Vision Therapy needs to be fun to help motivate our patients. Those blogs are great resources.   

3. Let Your Children Explore and Play! : I am a big advocate of hands-on-activities, as opposed to electronics like an iPhone/iPad or a Nintendo DS.

4. What are Primative Reflexes? : This is a great subject, and is a very challenging subject to understand, which is why I think it makes the "most popular blog list" this year. For the whole series: What Causes Reflexes to Be Retained?, Retained Reflexes related to Learning Difficulties.

5. Is there correlation between ADD/ADHD and vision problems?: Most of my patients are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, and since there is a correlation between the two, it intrigues our readers.

6. And finally - Vision Therapy Resources: Who doesn't want to know more about Vision Therapy?! These are great resources that some of my parents loved.

There it is... I have enjoyed blogging and learning more about what I am passionate about - VISION THERAPY! What were your favorite blogs this year?! What would you like me to blog about?

Have a great holiday season! And looking forward to seeing you all in the New Year! 

Our New Gadgets and Gizmos

For a long time now I have been wanting to do a blog on the new cool things that have been brought to our office. As our practice grows we have the opportunity to find more ways to accommodate and help our patients. One way we stay up to date is through technology. Today I am going to talk about two technological ways we are making what we do better!

First up: Sanet Vision Integrator (SVI). This 46” touch screen monitor is designed to improve visual abilities for a wide range of patients with visually-related learning problems, strabismus, amblyopia, and traumatic brain injury (TBI). It is also very effective for sports vision enhancement work with athletes.

The key features that make this “all in one” instrument so useful are the variety of programs and many ways that visual abilities can be enhanced. The SVI instrument actually “speaks”, instructing the patient to respond to verbal commands, improving auditory-visual integration and memory. The SVI can be used to enhance the following visual abilities: Pursuits, saccades, fixation stability, eye-hand coordination, visual reaction time, speed and span of recognition, automaticity, and contrast sensitivity, plus visual and auditory sequencing and memory. In addition it is extremely effective when working with visual acuity improvement in patients with amblyopia, TBI patients with visual field loss, visual-spatial neglect, and visual-vestibular integration problems, and with patients with rhythm, reading, and math problems.

As you can see, it is a great asset to our Vision Therapy Program. Click here for video demonstrations.

Next: Diopsys^® NOVA-VEP. This test called Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) objectively measures the functional responses of the entire visual pathway from the anterior segment of the eye to the visual cortex. By using VEP, the device provides quantitative information to support the interpretation and management of eye and vision deficits, and reports and documents the results of practitioner intervention for tracking patients’ response. It is easy to use, non-invasive, and provides a quick qualitative analysis of the VEP waveform and easy quantitative analysis of the amplitude (strength) and latency (speed) values. We test children six months of age and older, patients with a degenerative process such as glaucoma or multiple sclerosis (MS), or patients following a neurological event like traumatic brain injury (TBI) or stroke in order to help the clinician detect visual deficits such as optic nerve disorders, amblyopia, and other neuro-visual disorders.

In easier terms it is measuring the communication between your eyes and the brain. Isn't that our goal with Vision Therapy?! Now we have a test that shows us the wavelengths of the brain activity through both eyes. This test can also show the effectiveness Vision Therapy has of each patient. WOW!

As you can see these are two tests to be very excited about. Thankful we have the opportunity to provide our patients with the best up-to-date technology.

Lastly, another new thing is Optometric Physicians of Middle Tennessee has a twitter! If you would like to follow click here.

Thanks for all the followers and readers, we appreciate you! 

COVD Conference

Happy December! I have had a lot of great feedback from last blog post, titled Travel Therapy. I was going to do an individual blog on Stocking Stuffers, but the list I gave you on Travel Therapy, are all great gifts! Also, a fellow Vision Therapy Center in Brookfield, Mich., did a blog post titled 81 Vision Friendly Gifts for Kids. It has a great list a gifts for Christmas that help improve hand-eye coordination, visualization, and space perception.

Speaking of fellow vision therapists, I recently went to Fort Worth, Texas, for College of Optometrists in Vision Developement (COVD) conference. COVD does conferences once a year, and the course I took this year was called VT101. We discussed everything from the use of prisms and to sensory/motor fusion. After each class all the vision therapists would talk about all the different exercises we do. I met Vision Therapists from Denver, Colorado to Canada. I came back to the office with more knowledge and FUN activities that all my patients have enjoyed.

All in all, it was great to get all the vision therapists from around the world together. It is great to be surrounded around people who are just as passionate about Vision Therapy as you are.

Until next week we will chat about some of the new stuff in our Vision Therapy area. Have a great weekend!