Social Networking at its Finest!

Hope everyone has enjoyed making home exercises more fun. In our busy worlds, sometimes it is hard to interrupt a routine and be creative. I hope you got creative this week with home therapy exercises.

During the times without patients, I am constantly looking for new and creative things relating to vision therapy. I think it is safe to say learning new things about what we do, brings more excitement into our lives. Through my search, I have found a lot of great things through social networking sites.

Social networking is a great place to share interests and/or activities. Facebook is the biggest social network (please like us if you haven't). But there is more out there, like Pinterest! Have you heard of Pinterest? "Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests." I don't know about you, but I love Pinterest! I love that it is so visual!  

It's popularity has grown within the past year. I started searching in their search engine "vision therapy." And what do you know, several therapist or parents have started their own Pinterest. Please check some out:

-VT Possibilities

-Vision Therapy

-Vision Therapy Resources

-Just search "Vision Therapy"

Following these can give us more creative ways to do therapy with our children. Being connected can help all of us grow and expand our knowledge of Vision Therapy. It is a great way to share new, interesting, and creative therapy activities. Start pinning, searching and if you have not started an account, request your invite today!

Fun Home Exercises! Continued....

  

Did anyone try those tracking exercises? If so, which ones did you try? Anything that is new and fun always makes children excited, so I hope you were able to incorporate them into your home exercise regiment. Today we are going to talk about convergence and fun exercises to do at home or on the go.

First, what does convergence mean? It is when the eyes aim inward at the same spot in order to fixate on print. Can you imagine what happens when the eyes do not converge together? It tells us there is a lack of proper eye teaming. This leads to double vision, poor depth perception, exhaustion and headaches when reading, writing, or doing other near tasks for extended periods of time. A lot of children having the above problems have convergence insufficiency (inability to converge eyes together). Through different exercise we can get the eye to work together as a team - our main goal in Vision Therapy!

Fun! Fun! Fun! Convergence Home Exercises:

On the go and want to do Vision Therapy Exercise? Try these:

• Put a small sticker on the window nearest your child, and instruct him/her to look at the sticker for a few seconds, then to look outside at the farthest thing their eyes can find, and then back at the sticker again. Have your child do this at least 10 times every time they get in the car.
• In the morning when your child is brushing their teeth in the bathroom have them doing convergence exercises. First, put a sticker on the mirror, have them stare at the sticker, then have your child look at themselves through the mirror, then back to the sticker again. Brushing your teeth becomes more fun!

More Fun:

• Push Ups: Use a fun toy that lights up or interests your child. Place the toy about 10-12 inches from your child's nose and gradually bring toward the tip of their nose with your child converging to avoid diplopia (double vision). Just before there is a break in fusion, your child holds fixation on the target for 10 seconds. This push-up is repeated 10 times. 
• Brock String: Who loves the Brock String?! I know all of you do. Make it fun by having your child use their imagination and pretend there is a bug at the end of the string. Have them slowly watch the bug come toward their nose. No beads to look at, just a bug! 
• Magic Eye Books: Have your child pick one of their interest.
• Stringing Beads or Shapes at a near point. 
• Eye Can Learn website: Great eye teaming exercises. 
• Use accommodated flippers while reading a story of your child's interest. These flippers help with the motion of convergence and divergence. You flip the lenses with every paragraph. These flippers can be purchased through Nashville Vision Therapy.

Incorporate some of these exercises into your schedule. Next week we will talk about Balance and Coordination.  Happy converging!

How to Make Vision Therapy Home Exercises Fun!

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A big part of our Vision Therapy program is home exercises. In Vision Therapy, newly acquired visual skills are reinforced and made automatic through repetition and by integration with motor and cognitive skills. The key word I like to focus on is repetition. Seeing our Vision Therapist once a week is great and recommended, but the work still has to continue at home. Home exercises should be done at least 4-6 times a week for best results, and it is through repetition of these exercises the visual system will be greatly improved. 

A big question we get asked is: "How can I make these home exercises fun?" Great question! In today’s blog we are going to go over some great tracking exercises. 

First, why do we do tracking exercises? Most of our patients have Ocular Motor Dysfunction (OMD), in easier terms a "Tracking Problem." That means the eyes are unable to follow a moving object smoothly. This diagnosis does not mean there is a physical problem with the eyes, but it is disconnect between the eyes and the brain. As most of you know when doing the tracking exercise that is prescribed, you will see your child's eyes jerk, lose focus, or have jumps and quivers. This is because of the OMD. Some symptoms your child might experience when having OMD is losing place when reading, eyes easily fatigue, and often get headaches with near activities.  Through different tracking exercises, we will teach the eyes to track better, which creates a better pathway of communication to the brain. 

Here, we give the usual tracking exercise where you follow a pencil top going vertical, horizontal, and circular motions. This is a great simple exercise but can get boring for your child. Let’s change it up and make tracking exercises more fun! For these fun exercises, you will need an eye patch, lots of reminders to keep the head still, and exercises that involve a moving target for them to focus on. Make sure each eye gets equal time with the patch, and do same exercise with patch off for the eyes to have time to work together. 

Ways to make more fun:

• Use a light up toy with lots of colors to track with.
• Use a lollipop to track with. Then they can eat it after!
• Soccer and other ball sports
• Search and Find Games: Where's Waldo, I-Spy, Hidden  Pictures
• Marsden Ball: First, attach a ball on a long string. Then hang it from a high place. Make it about 3-4 feet above the floor. Now you're ready! Have the child lie on the floor looking up with patch on left eye, and move the ball in wide circles, and in horizontal lines while the child is following the object with just their eye (no head movements!). Repeat with right eye patched and then no patch. Switch up the ball with more objects to make new and exciting.
• Eye Can Learn website has some great tracking exercises.
• Mazes: Print off the computer and use bright colors to find your way out. 

Try one of these this week! Let us know how it goes. Next week we will blog about Convergence exercises. We have a lot to look forward too! Happy Tracking!

Vestibular System and Visual System. How do they work together?

A big part of the NORA conference was about the vestibular system and why it's important to vision. Too often we look at the vestibular system and visual system as two separate entities. After this conference, it helped us understand how these two systems work together. The purpose of the vestibular system is to sense changes in motion. It is connected to many parts of the body including digestive tract, language center of the brain, the limbic system and to the muscles of the eyes. Basically, it is the "balance system", that is located in the inner ear.

When the vestibular system is functioning at its highest, it will contribute to healthy digestion, the emergence of receptive and expressive communication, emotional bonding, and visual focus. So why is the vestibular system so important to vision? The vestibular system works in conjunction with the visual system to detect head and body motion as well as eye movement. This interaction is called the opto-kinetic system, which serves as the body’s motion detection system, and allows us to make two types of eye movements. Slow, steady, smooth eye movements called “pursuits,” and large eye jumps that occur without blur in between points A and B called “saccades,” take place effortlessly when the visual/vestibular interaction is intact.

What conferences have you gone to and did you have any light bulb moments? I would love to know.

NORA

Optometric Physicians and Nashville Vision Therapy just got back from the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association (NORA) conference in Memphis. We came away with a great understanding on how as committed individuals from various disciplines have to come and work together as a team. The rehabilitation for the neurologically-challenged patient needs a team of passionate individuals to build up their system. It was also refreshing the variety of the speakers - OD (Optometrist), OT (Occupational Therapist), PT (Physical Therapist), Chiropractor. It showed that we all can work together and we all need each other to support our patients. No one is better the rest, or more beneficial - we are a team. It was great to be reminded of that.

Stay tuned for more about the NORA conference.

Stroke Rehabilitation and Vision Therapy

Here at Nashville Vision Therapy, we treat many stroke survivors. Our hearts are passionate about helping our stroke survivors gain control and independence in everyday living situations. This subject is on our minds because next week our staff is traveling to Memphis for a conference with NORA.

What is NORA? It stands for Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association. It is a group of committed individuals from various disciplines focus on advancing the art and science of rehabilitation for the neurologically challenged patient. We are excited to learn more about stroke rehabilitation.

After a stroke there can be fear, apprehension and uncertainty that stroke survivors and families face. Much rehabilitation come with the aftermath of a stroke. There are two main means rehabilitation that you may think of, Physical Therapy (PT) and Occupational Therapy (OT). But there is really is three primary means of rehabilitation, with Vision Therapy included.

National Stroke Association explains it best:
"Many stroke survivors have visual problems following their strokes. To be able to see well, the brain and the eyes have to work together. Because part of the brain is damaged in a stroke, vision problems can be partial or complete loss of sight. Stroke survivors may also experience blurred vision, confusion or difficulty in performing visual activities, and eye strain. For stroke survivors with vision problems, it's harder to go back to work or even perform simple household tasks. As soon as possible after a stroke, stroke survivors should have a complete eye exam to find out if their eyes are healthy. This exam will uncover any stroke-related vision problems. Opthalmologists or optometrists are important members of a stroke patient's rehabilitation team. They can diagnose specific problems and recommend a treatment plan. Different types of vision therapy are available to retrain, strengthen, or sharpen vision following stroke. The goal of the therapy is to train healthy parts of the brain to perform the work of the part of the brain damaged by stroke. According to research, neither the age of the patient nor when the stroke occurred makes a difference in the effectiveness of this type of therapy."

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

Photo Compliments of Free Digital Photos



The title of this blog is a question we hear everyday in our office. To answer the question, “No, that isn't enough!” Children need a full comprehensive eye exam as early as six months. I have mentioned this in previous posts but I want to make sure we are on the same page. If you think about it, vision really is more than seeing 20/20. How are the eyes working together? How is your depth perception? How is your coordination? How is the alignment of the eyes? Finally, how are your visual perceptual skills? These are things we look for at Nashville Vision Therapy.

We are not all about a quick fix. We want to get to the root of every issue that we come across with each patient. You’d be amazed to learn what happens when the eyes don't move together - processing information is more difficult, coordination is lacking, hand writing is tiring, daily headaches, and more.

Many parents believe that school vision screenings are sufficient care for their children's eyes, but this is not true. My advice for every parent or guardian is schedule your child a comprehensive eye exam, be in touch with your child’s teachers, and find out where/if your child is struggling.

Let me leave you with this fact - 1 in 4 children have a vision problem that interferes with learning that a school screening does not detect. Let's work together and spread the word about how vision affects learning and have your child receive a comprehensive exam yearly.