It is Vision and Learning Month!

August is Vision and Learning Month! Since our children are starting to head back to school, it is important to educate parents and teachers about the link between vision and learning. Some children may struggle with reading or learning and it could be associated with vision problems, but that is often overlooked.

When a parent says, “My child has 20/20 vision, he can not have a vision problem.” That is not true.  The vision screenings that are done at school do not always test for eye coordination and eye movement disorders. With that being said, vision problems are often overlooked because these possible problems could be mistaken for behavior or attention problems.

If a child has a vision problem that goes undetected he or she may struggle with reading and doing their school work.  Some signs that the child may be struggling could be fidgeting, fatigue, headaches, and frustrations in the classroom.

As mentioned above, it is not about just having 20/20 vision. Many other factors go into vision and learning.  Please be aware of this if you notice your child struggling to read and learn. Early diagnosis and treatment is beneficial to help our children succeed. When scheduling your child's back-to-school eye exam choose a doctor that is a developmental optometrist. 

More on blogs that we have done in relation to Vision & Learning here:

Is there correlation between ADD/ADHD and vision problems?

How are Vision and Learning linked?

'My child gets vision screenings at school, isn't that good enough?' 

Teacher Resources

Learning Disabilities Awareness Month 

 

 

 

 

 

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month

In honor of Brain Injury Awareness Month here are all the blogs we have posted about this subject:
Concussions
Concussions Continued
Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation 

Here are two of our success stories:
My name is Adam. In 1994, when I was three years old I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. That same year I had my initial surgery, where the doctors were able to remove about 60% of the tumor. A month before the surgery a shunt was put in due to hydrocephalus (fluid buildup inside the skull) and spinal tap was performed to assess the tumor. Eight months after the first surgery, the tumor grew back twice the original size. The doctors were able to remove about 90% of the tumor at the time, the remaining 10% of the tumor had latched onto my brain.

As long as I can remember my left eye had given me trouble. It would veer out and would get worse when I was tired. This caused me to have double vision all the time.
With the double vision, I would get tired easily because of the difficulties with trying to concentrate.  I even got surgery on my left eye to try to correct the double vision, but unfortunately my double vision got worse as time went on.

This past year I was enrolled in the Traumatic Brain Injury program at Tennessee Rehabilitation Center. They referred me to Optometric Physicians of Middle Tennessee. I saw Dr. Durocher; he ran a series of tests to see what he could do to help my eyes work together. He fitted me for glasses with prisms and gave me home Vision Therapy exercises. This made my double vision go away!
Since the double vision went away I am now able to work. I am currently employed at TJ Maxx in Brentwood and I am doing very well at work. I will continue to see Dr. Durocher and his team whenever I need help with my eyes. The staff treated me so well at Dr. Durocher's office. I had a wonderful time working with Dr. Durocher. I am very thankful to Dr. Durocher and his staff for helping me. They cured one of my biggest problems, and are a great group of people.

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My name is Esmeralda. I was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia. To treat it I had a surgery called Microvascular Decompression (MVD). It is a surgical procedure that relieves abnormal compression of a cranial nerve. There was a complication with my surgery and I had a brain hemorrhage. After the brain hemorrhage I lost mobility in my right eye, had blurred vision in both eyes, and double vision.
I then started rehab and then they referred me to Dr. Durocher. He examined my eyes, he then prescribed me prism lenses and recommended I do aggressive Neuro-Optometric therapy. I started therapy with Mrs. Kate, she gave me home therapy and I started to see her weekly. She began to work hard on my eyes. After a few weeks I started using my eyes together, and didn’t see any double vision! I thank God and the help of the medical staff at Optometric Physicians. I believe that therapy is critical to recovery, and I want to thank them for all the help with my eyes. May God bless you and give you wisdom to continue to help, to those who need it most.
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It has been an honor to have had the pleasure to work with Adam and Esmeralda. It motivates me to continue to help spread the word about Vision Therapy and Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation. If you know someone who has had a Brain Injury refer them to your local optometrist.

Home Therapy Tips

In my last blog post, I referenced the most popular blogs. All were connected on how to make therapy more fun. They are popular because doing therapy the recommended 6 times a week can be challenging and by making it more fun it becomes easier.

I have stated the importance of therapy in a blog post titled "Home Therapy". "Your visual system is working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With vision therapy we are looking to change the behavior of your visual system and to do that it is all about repetition. That is the key to being successful. Our goal is to make the visual system automated (which means working on it's own without you having to think about it), and the best way to do that is through repetition."

Recently, I read this blog and I want everyone of my parents to read it: Tips for Scheduling Your Child's At-Home Vision Therapy Activities.

What are your thoughts? How can you make Vision Therapy priority?

Skydiving

My fellow teammate has helped me get more organized with my blogs. When looking at the blog scheduled for this week, the subject is "Personal Connection Blog." I wanted to blog about something fun or exciting that I have done and relate it to what I do... Vision Therapy!

Over Memorial Day weekend, I headed south to Mississippi to visit my niece and then couple days later I met up with my in-laws. Don't worry it gets more exciting. I went skydiving. Yes, you heard right, I jumped out of a perfectly functioning airplane.

But don't worry, I did it for a good cause - I jumped out of an airplane to support and to celebrate my mother in-law's 60th birthday. Not only that, I helped her cross out an item off her bucket list. After we safely landed and we calmed our nerves, we talked about the jump. She mentioned that months leading up to the jump, all she visualized (great VT word!) floating in the air and seeing what the birds saw. What she didn't visualize was the process of jumping out of an airplane. As much as my mother-law enjoyed it, she said she would never do it again (case in point with picture down below).

You are probably thinking, how is this going to relate to Vision Therapy? Here's a good quote I found (bold text is my emphasis):



-Any process of personal growth and healing requires us periodically to let go of what we have or of what we know and sit with the anxiety that comes with being in uncharted territory. We come to points where we recognize that what we are doing or clinging to no longer serves us. 

We must let go of what we have that no longer works for us in order to make room for the better and healthier. We can’t wait until the newer and better are here to let go of the old—we must let go and hang out in the space in-between.

It’s like jumping out of an airplane and being in free fall, waiting for the parachute to open. With time and experience, it becomes not so much terrifying as it is exhilarating, and we let go more readily of the old and are more comfortable in the space between, as we wait to discover what comes next.-

When embarking into our Vision Therapy program (uncharted territory), the experience can be terrifying (especially for a child). You have to let go of your normal to-do's and open up room for new to-do's (like home therapy and weekly visits). But with time and experience in the program, you begin to discover a whole new world.