Double Vision in Children

In today's blog we are going to talk about double vision. The most common cause of double vision is that the eyes are misaligned, which then causes two different images to be sent to the brain. Typically, the images are either side by side or overlapping.

When I have a student comes into our office for an assessment, one of my first questions is, "do you ever see two of whatever you are looking at?" And when they say "yes", it is almost like they are wondering, "How on earth did this lady know?"

When I am sitting in the room with just the parents discussing the assessment results and I tell them “your child has double vision,” often those parents feel terrible or guilty for not knowing. I have had parents in my office with tears in their eyes saying, "you must think I am the worst mother."

Of course, these parents aren’t awful at all! Let's break it down; a child is not aware that what they are seeing is abnormal. Therefore, they are unable to communicate their double vision to their parents--children think everyone sees the world as they do. It is not uncommon for parents to be unaware of their child's double vision.

If you suspect your child may have double vision, here are some signs to look out for:

• Reading problems
• Skipping or repeating words
• Overlapping letters when writing 
• Lots of headaches
• Poor depth perception

The good news is, we can treat double vision through vision therapy and/or prism lenses. Since the problem is that the eyes are misaligned we can help alleviate the issue by getting to work on eye teaming exercises.

While hearing your child having double vision is alarming, there are solutions!

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.

Concussion Continued

If you have ever experienced a concussion, there are a number of symptoms that relate to the connection between vision function and concussions. These symptoms can include:

• –blurred vision – especially when reading

• –headaches associated with reading

• –double vision

• –eye pain

• –poor reading comprehension

• –light sensitivity

• –frequent loss of place when reading

When having these symptoms, then what?

"For the student athlete, these symptoms can have a huge effect on learning and school performance.  These vision problems can also linger months after the initial pain and headaches associated with the concussion have gone away. The most common causes of these problems are a convergence insufficiency (eyes that don’t work well together at near) and/or accommodative (focusing) insufficiency following the injury.

The good news is that these vision problems respond well to optometric intervention. Treatment usually consists of a combination of glasses for reading and optometric vision therapy.  These treatments allow the student to return to their academic activities much sooner than just waiting for things to clear up on their own."

I also wanted to touch base on a test that can be performed on the sidelines of sports events to make return-to-game decisions. We have heard or seen athletes go back into a game after experiencing a concussion. Long- and short-term effects can be very dangerous.

After a concussion the ability to perform saccadic eye movements (changing gaze) will be impaired. "Saccadic eye movements are very complex and require coordination across a wide network of anatomical structures in the brain. Concussions have immediate impact on the brain’s networking skills. The result is decreased performance on tests of saccadic eye movements, especially subjective procedures that require a verbal response from the athlete.

The King-Devick Test has been used to evaluate the eye movement skills of children, especially those with learning and reading problems. Now, it can be used on the sidelines of sports events to make return-to-game decisions! A decrease in performance from a baseline measurement is a very strong indicator that the athlete has suffered a concussion and should not be allowed to return to the playing field until evaluated by a neurologist."

The King-Devick might look very familiar to most of you that have had your child perform the Perceptual Motor Evaluation here at our office. Take a look at this video:

Please spread the word about the King-Devick Test. It can make a huge difference in a lot of athletes lives. If you or someone you know has recently had a concussion go to your local optometrist and neurologist.

Some of the information was taken from COVD blogs here: 
There's More to Concussions than Meets the Eye
Eye Protect Brain