Spring has arrived!

Warmer weather has arrived! It's that time to let you children go outside to play and explore! Today we are going to talk about catching and throwing. We are going to talk about why it is important!

Growing up, I played softball.  I never understood the importance of playing softball, I just knew it was fun and I loved being part of a team.  Little did I know just playing catch was building up my visual system.

Here's why playing catch is important: First and foremost while throwing and catching we are building our visual skills. It can also help us detect visual problems.

Many times as I am talking with our patients' parents, aside from asking about school performance I ask, "Do they like to play sports?" or, "How are they with catching?" Most of parents say, "They hate sports, and are not very good at catching." Bingo! That tells me that their visual system needs to learn to work in a different way to accomplish the task.

In a previous blog about Sports Therapy, I wrote about sports and how they have different visual demands. Check it out:

• 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)

All these visual demands require good eye teaming and focusing ability. If you are lacking either skill, catching will be very difficult.

Starting this weekend, go out and play ball with your children! It will strengthen their visual skills, help their eyes (and brain) learn to refocus and work together.

If you find that your child is having difficulty catching, it is time for a Comprehensive Evaluation here at Optometric Physicians.

April is Autism Awareness Month

Signs of Autism: PSA Provides Parents with a New Look

College of Optometrists in Vision Development Release PSA on Autism & Vision

 

Lack of eye contact, staring at spinning objects or light, fleeting peripheral glances, side viewing, and difficulty attending visually are behaviors typically associated with autism.  Yet these can also be signs that there is a visual component to your child’s challenges.  This April, the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) is participating in Autism Awareness Month and releasing a Public Service Announcement to help educate parents on the visual component to Autism.

As COVD President, Dr. David Damari notes, “Visual problems are very common in individuals with autism. Children on the autism spectrum often have eye coordination and eye movement disorders. For example, when asked to follow an object with their eyes, they usually do not look directly at the object. Instead, they will scan or look off to the side of the object. They might also have difficulty maintaining visual attention. At least one study suggests that more than 20% of those with autism have strabismus (eye turn) and 10% have amblyopia (lazy eye). Other studies support this high incidence of functional vision problems as well.”

Most people don’t realize our eyes are actually part of the brain. So it stands to reason that if someone has a neurological disorder that impacts the brain, their vision would be compromised in some way.  Children with ASD and other neurological disorders don’t complain verbally when their world doesn’t look right; they show us with their behavior.  When vision disorders are treated, one can see improvement in the child’s behavior and how he interacts with the world.

Here is one example of how a child’s behavior changed dramatically once the vision problem was treated.  As a pediatrician, Zach’s mother was aware of the symptoms of autism. While he had many symptoms of autism, he did not meet enough criteria for that diagnosis.  It wasn’t until she took him to a developmental optometrist that she understood how an undiagnosed vision problem could impact his quality of life.

Dr. Janna Jennings shares, “Zach begged me to bring him a loaded gun so he could shoot himself in the head … Since he started wearing the bifocals prescribed by the developmental optometrist a little over two years ago, he has never said another suicidal thing again. After a few months of vision therapy, he stopped saying he was stupid.”  While it took more than bifocals and vision therapy to help Zach fully recover, you can see the impact bifocals and vision therapy can make when there is a visual component to a child’s challenges.

“For this April’s observance of Autism Awareness month,” Damari continues, “we invite everyone to take a few minutes to view our Public Service Announcements and share them with your friends and relatives.”



Please contact us at 615-386-3036 or VT@rdeyes.com to learn more about how vision disorders can impact a child with ASD. 

Tell Your World

Want to tell the world about Vision Therapy? Start by telling YOUR world!

How did you find out about vision therapy?  Chances are you learned of it through a friend, a teacher, or an optometrist who has experienced the success of vision therapy, and wants to help spread the word.

This word-of-mouth is the most effective way to educate people about vision therapy.  It’s also the most critical, as many people have never heard of vision therapy, even though it could have a transformative effect on their lives.

The first step toward telling the world is to have people like you tell your world.  Help us by reaching out to your friends, family, schools, doctors and community.

Share through Social Media

• Spread the word to your Facebook connections.

Become a fan of Nashville Vision Therapy and then “Like” and/or comment on our articles.  Every week, we’ll post an informative article – please make sure you “Like” it and/or comment on it to pass it along to your friends.

• Tweet about us.

Follow us on Twitter and retweet our stories to your followers.

• Email our information.

Email our Vision Therapy Packet to your friends. Here is some sample email copy:

_____

Hi – I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but ___ recently underwent vision therapy, and the results have been amazing.  (Feel free to add details.)  I was surprised by how many people didn’t realize what vision therapy was. 

In fact, 1 in 4 children has an undetected vision problem that can impair their ability to learn. 

If your child has any of the following symptoms, they may have a vision problem:
• Struggles with school
• Can’t concentrate
• Frequent headaches
• Doesn’t like to read
• Has double vision
• Has problems playing catch or is overly clumsy

For more information, you can also visit Nashville Vision Therapy’s website at www.rdeyes.com/vision-therapy.

_________

Now VT World, go share your stories! Ready..... GO!

At Any Age

Last year I wrote a blog about Susan Barry. If you remember she was born "cross-eyed", and she saw her life in only two dimension. Later in life she saw a Developmental Optometrist and began vision therapy. At age 48 (yes, 48!) she started to see life in 3D!

Last October she was interviewed by NPR for NOVA web series called, "The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers." I thought this was great video because Susan Barry never gave up despite what everyone was telling her. Also her story teaches us a great lesson: That with hard work and no matter what the age we are we can do anything! 

Playing to see

One thing that is important to understand about vision is that proper vision is a learned skill, just like balance in the rest of the body, or language. Visual development is linked closely to fine and gross motor development and cognitive development, so when you provide good opportunities for a child to work on visual development, you enhance their entire development.

How do you promote good visual development? Play! When children are out interacting with their environment, they are learning important visual lessons—how to judge the distance from other objects in space to themselves, for example. If you want some specific ideas on how to incorporate visual development into family activities, check out the Family Game Night blog. 

Keep in mind that motor development and visual development are interrelated, so delays in one tend to affect the other. Keeping children active and exploring new environments will foster good motor and visual development! Stay tuned for more, and as always, feel free to comment or contact us via email or phone if you have any questions!

Fashionable patching? It can be done!

We are pleased to announce that we will be offering spot patches in contact lens form and special sport tint lenses! What are these you ask?

Spot Patch Contact Lens

The spot patch is for patients that have to wear a patch for extended periods of time.These lenses have a black spot in the middle that mimics a pupil, but is a bit larger. That spot blocks light to the pupil, thus effectively "patching" the eye in which the contact is worn. If you or your child wear their patch for more than an hour, the spot patch contact lens would be a great option!

Many people (especially teenagers) object to the patch for cosmetic reasons. Especially for patients who need to patch for long periods of time, a pirate-style patch is obvious and embarrassing.



As with any contact lenses, it's important to consider whether a spot patch lens is the right choice for you or the vision therapy patient in your life. Contact lenses require consistent care in the form of cleaning, appropriate storage, and correct insertion/removal of lens. Another consideration: contacts are small and easy to lose! However, a patch contact lens can be an excellent choice for the responsible patient.

Sport Tint Lenses

As you might imagine, sport tint lenses come in a variety of tints that can help enhance game play. For example, a gray-green tint may help golfers better differentiate distance on a golf course, while an amber tint helps block high amounts of blue light to heighten contrast and visual acuity, which is especially helpful in improving contrast on grass and against blue skies.

Questions about how patch or sport tint contact lenses can work for you? Get in touch with us! We'll be happy to answer any questions you might have!

Hope everyone has a WONDERFUL weekend!

VT from an Insider

Today, we have a special treat.... a guest blogger. I think you are really going to enjoy reading her perspective of Vision Therapy. Take a look:

Hello all! I’m a Vision Therapist in training here at Nashville Vision Therapy at Optometric Physicians of Middle Tennessee, and I’m excited to be entering such an interesting profession.

In addition to studying vision therapy (VT) and training to be a VT assistant, I have recently enrolled as a vision therapy patient! So for my first post to our VT blog, I’d like to briefly outline what the experience of vision therapy is like from a patient’s perspective, which may help facilitate conversation with a loved VT patient in your own life. 

Vision Therapy can be a sensitive subject

Remember that while it’s absolutely true that visual-system insufficiencies in no way reflect a person’s intelligence or intellect, a VT patient might have a difficult time keeping that in mind. Often there is a negative connotation with the word “therapy,” and patients feel that they are not measuring up to “normal standards,” which may cause embarrassment. As this blog has outlined, candidates for vision therapy often have visual difficulties that have impacted scholastic and/or physical achievements, and patients may feel sensitive about their inability to perform at the level that their peers can. It’s important to recognize that visual difficulties are a legitimate medical issue, and are in no way the fault of the patient. Keep a positive attitude about a patient’s progress, and openly address any negativity or embarrassment with compassion. Understanding and support, in addition to reinforcing the fact that visual difficulties are not a failing of the patient’s mental faculties, will help bolster confidence and make vision therapy even more effective.

Vision therapy can be HARD

Carving out half an hour a day to do anything in our busy lives is difficult. It can be especially hard to set aside time to do something uncomfortable or unpleasant. VT can be a bit like hitting the gym after a long break from your regular work-out routine, or beginning a new form of exercise, like dance, to which your body is not yet accustomed. Vision therapy asks the eyes to perform in ways that they are not used to doing, and there is physical effort exerted to complete the exercises. While the benefits of vision therapy certainly outweigh any discomfort, recognizing the effort that completing vision therapy requires can be very validating for the patient, and can be great encouragement to continue. Just a simple “I know that this can be hard or uncomfortable for you, and I’m so proud that you keep doing your best,” can influence a patient to, well, keep doing their best!

Vision therapy can be lonely

It might be difficult for a patient to describe how he/she sees the world, or it might be hard for a parent or a loved one to understand their description. In any case, knowing that they see differently from most people can make a patient feel a bit isolated. One way to combat that feeling is to be very active in your loved one’s daily therapy. Helping them with tracking, checking their accuracy on activities that ask them to read letters or numbers, or just being present and attentive while they do their therapy every day does WONDERS for the effectiveness of VT. Your involvement can help the patient stay focused, feel supported, and feel encouraged if they are having difficulties. Cheerful, positive involvement every day can turn vision therapy into an excellent time to bond and demonstrate love and support.

Vision therapy can be fun!

There have been (and will continue to be!) many blog posts already that illustrate wonderful ways to have fun with vision therapy. It may even be a great way to set aside time for the whole family to be involved in one activity together (e.g. playing a vision-friendly game). The more involvement and outside support a patient has, the more likely they are to complete daily exercises, and the more effective treatment will be!

So to wrap up, it’s important to keep in mind that any type of therapy can be physically and emotionally taxing, and the best things you can do to help out your loved one in vision therapy are:

• Keep open and honest communication, and offer support and encouragement when necessary
• Be involved!
• Remind yourself (and your loved one) that there is a BIG payoff for everyone’s hard work and dedication!

I’m looking forward to learning and sharing more over the next months, and feel free to get in touch with us with any questions or comments about the blogs we post!