Healthy Eyes

Let's talk about food! We have all heard "you are what you eat," right? That could not ring more true. What we put into our bodies truly affects us and how we function.

Today we are going to talk about some foods that keep our EYES healthy! We can do Vision Therapy exercises everyday to keep our eyes moving together...but how do we keep them healthy?

Here at our office, during an exam we like to educate our patients about nutrition for the eyes.  I hope this encourages you to start incorporating good eating habits into your families.

Let's start! There are many antioxidants and other nutrients that can reduce your risk of cataracts, macular degeneration, and alleviate symptoms of dry eye disease. Check out the following:

• Vitamin A is an antioxidant that is essential for proper functioning of the retina. It may protect against night blindness and dry eyes. Good sources for Vitamin A are beef or chicken liver, cod liver oil, eggs, milk, carrots, spinach, mangoes, papayas, peaches and apricots.
• Vitamin C may reduce the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration in addition to keeping your immune system in good shape. You can get your daily allowance of Vitamin C by eating not only oranges and other citrus fruits, but also from red or green sweet peppers, strawberries, kale and broccoli.
• Vitamin E has been associated with the prevention of cataracts and the delaying of cataract growth. When combined with carotenoids and Vitamin C it may reduce the risk of advanced macular degeneration. Food sources for Vitamin E are almonds, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, and green leafy vegetables.
• Omega-3 fatty acids are a great defense against dry eyes and macular degeneration. The following foods have a great source of Omega-3: salmon, mackerel, herring, flax seed, fish oil or walnuts.

With the above foods, lets not fry, over cook or put tons of cheese on top. To get the better source of nutrients try to keep the vegetables or fruits closer to the raw state. Also there are great vitamin supplements with the above nutrients.  

Let's start eating better today! Try to incorporate these foods into you and your families lives.

Vision Therapy Resources

With the cool air coming into Nashville, it lets us know that summer has almost come to an end. Not only that but with the sight of school buses and crossing guards, we know school is back in session! I hope the start of school has been great.

 
Today's blog I would like to share some great resources: 

• On the COVD website they have a great resource center for parents. Check it out: Parent Resource Center.
• In previous blogs we blogged about; "Is there correlation between ADD/ADHD and vision problems?"  As you read, a lot of ADD symptoms go hand-in-hand with vision problems. Yes, Vision Therapy can rid ADD symptoms. Here is a great book to check out for more information: Without Ritalin: A Natural Approach to ADD. Berne, Samuel, O.D., FCOVD.
• A couple months ago I blogged about Pinterest. This one is for all the moms that love Pinterst, check out all the Vision Therapy things people are pinning: Vision Therapy Pins.
• Before we start investing our time on anything, what is the first thing you want to do before you start? We find out if it works or we look for reviews, right? Check out our success stories.
• For more great books, check this out: Book List. There are books titled "Helping Hyperactive Kids - A Sensory Integration Approach" to "How to Improve Your Child's Eyesight Naturally" to "The Mislabeled Child." Great resources parents!

There are so many great resources out there about Vision Therapy. Not only that but how to improve our child's life naturally. I hope you take advantage of some of these great resources. Until next week, I encourage you to do something new and creative with your child this week!

Sports Vision

The past couple of weeks, we have had exciting things happening in the sports world--and I'm not just talking about the Olympics! There are many perks that come with my job, and the best is seeing my patients excited about their success. Last week, after several weeks of vision therapy, one of my patients caught a pop fly and hit a home run. A couple weeks before that, one of the children in our therapy program caught a football turning into a touchdown. To see the excitement in their eyes as they were telling me makes what we do worth it.  It is so gratifying to see our patients succeed.

While we are talking about sports, did you know that Vision Therapy improves sports performance? Does your child always seem to be just a few steps away from the soccer ball?  Having trouble catching a baseball during a game? 

Vision, just like speed and strength, is an important component in how well you play your sport. There is much more to vision than just seeing clearly.  Your vision is comprised of many interrelated skills that can affect how well you play.  And, just as exercise and practice can increase your speed and strength, it can also improve your visual fitness and accuracy.

Because all sports have different visual demands, our doctors assess your unique visual system and recommend a vision therapy program to maximize your visual skills.

Sports Benefits include:

• Passing/shooting aim (depth perception and eye/hand coordination)
• Improved defensive and offensive awareness (peripheral vision)
• Enhanced reaction time (eye/hand coordination)
• Improved hitting in baseball (tracking and depth perception)
• Improved fielding (tracking and depth perception)

If you feel like Sports Vision Therapy could benefit you or your child please call us: 615-386-3036.

We're growing, and our patients are graduating!

Many exciting things are in the works here at Optometric Physicians and Nashville Vision Therapy. I am excited to announce in the next few weeks we will show off our new website! After tireless work, we can not wait to launch. We also just received this new device for our Vision Therapy room: Sanet Vision Integrator. We're looking forward to assembling it and learning all the new programs. We are growing! We have been busy with great new changes and loving every second.

Not only are exciting things happening here at the office, but exciting things have happened to our patients. I have graduated many patients the last month from our Vision Therapy program. To see our patients meet their goals and beyond, is a great honor to be apart of. It is also an honor to be apart of their journey! I have one of the coolest jobs!

In the next post, I am going to talk about sports and vision. Just a tid bit of what to look forward to: Vision, just like speed and strength is an important component in how well you play your sport.

Thank you to all our followers and readers! It is my pleasure to share what it is that we love to do!

"Fixing My Gaze"

Has anyone ever heard of Sue Barry? Sue Barry was a women who was born "cross-eyed", and she saw her life in only two dimension. She wrote a book about her experience called Fixing My Gaze. This book describes her astonishing experience of gaining 3D stereovision after a lifetime of seeing in only two dimensions. She did intensive vision therapy which created new neural connections, and with them, a new view of the world.

In this video below she discusses how vision therapy transformed not only her vision, but her beliefs about the neuroplasticity of the adult brain. It is a great story and just shows how beneficial Vision Therapy is at any age.

"For most of my life, the last place I wanted to be was an eye doctor's office. I had been cross-eyed since infancy, and despite three surgeries, remained cross-eyed and stereoblind. Scientific dogma indicated that my visual deficits resulted from changes in brain circuitry that occurred in infancy and could not be reversed in adulthood. So, when I finally consulted a developmental optometrist and began optometric vision therapy at age 48, I took a significant risk. I had to think beyond the conventional wisdom, abandon old visual habits, and master skills that most children acquire within the first six months of life. As I began to straighten my eyes and see in 3D, I learned that the adult brain is indeed capable of significant plasticity. Rewiring in the adult brain requires the presence of novel and behaviorally relevant stimuli, the conscious abandonment of entrenched habits, and the establishment, through intense practice, of new ones."

The Importance of Visualization

Last week, I wrote about Pinterst and how I loved it because it was so visual. I am a very visual person; meaning a person can talk all day long on how to do something, but if they do not perform the task for me to see, I won't be able to comprehend it as well. That leads me to today's blog, "The Importance of Visualization".
  
First, what is visualization? It is the ability to create mental images in your mind. Can you imagine how many things that can affect in your life with the inability to visualize?

The inability to visualize can impact all subjects in school for your child.

• Reading: If your child has vision problems, reading is probably very challenging for them. Your child is spending more time decoding the words individually rather than visualizing and comprehending. You will notice their fluency when reading is very slow, leading to difficulty processing the words. While decoding the words individually, they will not "see" the story when reading. Thus making reading very time consuming which leads to frustration. Reading should be fun!  
• Spelling: With spelling your child has to create a mental image of the words without seeing the word. The visualization skill is crucial in spelling. Creating that mental image will be based on a past visual experience.
• Writing: Visualization is important in handwriting because your child has to create a mental image of each different word while writing it on the page. Multi-tasking at its finest!  
• Math: If your child lacks the visualization skill they usually count on their fingers or silently verbalize the different number sequences. Your child needs to be able to visualize numbers and quantities in able to be successful in math.

Does your child have difficulty in any or all of the above areas? As you can see visualization is crucial in the success of all school subjects. Your child wants to be able to visualize the story when he/she reads, and get As on spelling test. Let Nashville Vision Therapy give them the tools to improve visualization. Your child will see a whole new world when they have the ability to visualize.

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!