Vision therapy is a non-invasive treatment that strengthens your visual system. Could this personalized therapy be the key to clearer vision and a more comfortable life?
Let’s discuss how vision therapy works, who benefits from it, and the signs that might indicate you’re a candidate.
What is Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy is like a personalized workout program for your eyes, helping you see better. It exposes your eyes to various tools, techniques, and exercises to improve your visual abilities.
It can improve visual skills, manage discomfort, and reduce eye strain. It can also help your eyes focus and work together better to process what you see more accurately.
Beyond improving eyesight, vision therapy aims to enhance:
- Eye tracking
- Eye muscle strength
- Depth perception
- Eye convergence
- Coordination
- Visual processing speed
Does Vision Therapy Work?
Vision therapy can help improve certain eye conditions, such as strabismus, amblyopia, and convergence insufficiency. However, it does have limitations.
For example, it can’t correct refractive errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. There’s also little scientific evidence to suggest that eye exercises can improve overall vision.
Who Benefits From Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy can help people with vision problems or a weak visual system. For example, it can help children see and perform better in school.
Research shows that 1 in 10 children have a vision problem that leads to learning problems in school. However, school vision screenings may miss upwards of half of these.
Vision therapy can also help athletes improve their eye tracking and reaction time. It can even help train the brain to see normally again after a concussion or brain injury.
What Eye Conditions Does Vision Therapy Fix?
When combined with treatment, vision therapy can manage many types of eye conditions. Sometimes, it can help relieve headaches and fatigue caused by visual problems.
Some examples of conditions that can be treated with vision therapy include:
- Amblyopia. A condition where the brain can’t recognize the sight from the affected eye. If one eye is affected, the brain tends to favor the other eye that sees better.
- Strabismus. An eye misalignment in which one or both of the eyes turn inward or outward.
- Esotropia. An eye misalignment where one or both eyes are turned inward (crossed eyes).
- Exotropia. The opposite of crossed eyes, where one or both eyes are turned outward.
- Dyslexia. A learning and reading disability that can make it difficult to decode letters and words. Some may have trouble identifying speech sounds.
- Convergence insufficiency. Occurs when your eyes don’t work together to focus on near objects.
- Double vision (diplopia). A condition in which you see two of a single object.
What Does Vision Therapy Actually Look Like?
Vision therapy might involve special lenses or filters to help your eyes work together and adjust their focus. Sometimes eye patches are used to make the weaker eye work harder for cases like lazy eye (amblyopia).
Your therapist may involve focusing games like following targets and switching focus from one object to another quickly. Sometimes, they’ll use computer programs that provide visual challenges to train the brain.
An optometric vision therapy program usually involves in-office visits with the visual therapist. At-home reinforcement exercises are also performed over a few weeks to a few months. However, the duration of the program typically depends on your vision, goals, and visual problems.
Signs You May Need Vision Therapy
There are various signs and vision problems indicating that you need vision therapy or treatment. Talk to an eye doctor if you’re experiencing:
- Frequent headaches from reading or doing close work
- Eye strain or fatigue
- Light sensitivity
- Difficulties when reading (skipping lines or losing your place)
- Poor reading comprehension
- Poor academic performance
- Squinting or closing one eye to read or focus
- Head tilting or reading at an angle
- Poor hand-eye coordination
- Difficulty judging distances
- Floaters, blurred vision, and other visual disturbances
- Excessive blinking or eye rubbing
- Poor attention span during visual tasks
- Avoiding reading and other forms of close work
Overall, vision therapy is a great way to manage eye conditions and problems. Consider reaching out to an optometrist or ophthalmologist for a personalized vision therapy program suitable for your needs.
If vision therapy doesn’t work, they may recommend other treatment options, such as glasses, contacts, medications, or surgery.
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