Poor visual skills can impact aspects of everyday life, including reading, driving, and learning development. While vision acuity may be treated with corrective lenses or surgery, visual skills cannot. Vision therapy is an in-office type of therapy that practices techniques to train the eye’s visual skills. This non-surgical and drug-free treatment can be beneficial for people who suffer from eye disorders that may otherwise have limited or no other solutions. Visual therapy is a series of eye exercises that trains the eyes instead of focusing on muscle building, as the eyes already have excellently developed muscles. Vision therapy can help both children and adults to improve their vision skills and raise their quality of life.
Visual Therapy 101
What Is Vision Therapy? Vision therapy trains the eyes and the brain to work together. While visual acuity is a measure of how good your eyesight is using the 20/20 scale, visual skills are the mechanical skills of the visual system that include functions such as eye movement and focus. Visual skills are an incredibly important part of vision development and if visual skills are lacking they can be trained to improve. Visual therapy trains the eyes to develop visual function and alleviate struggles with high-level performance.
Why Do Vision Therapy? Visual therapy can help children in school. When a child’s vision improves, they are able to see the board, see their workbooks up close, focus better, and not feel they are falling behind their peers. This increase in self-esteem coupled with the ability to participate and pay attention in class fosters greater learning within children. Increasing visual skills through visual therapy also tends to decrease headaches, motion sickness, hyperactivity, and fatigue while increasing coordination.
What Is Involved In Visual Therapy? Visual therapy is conducted in-office under the supervision of a trained optometrist. Sessions typically last between 30 minutes and 1 hour and a step-by-step program is followed that includes eye exercises and training. The eye doctor will likely send the patient home with a set of exercises to perform in between sessions. The goal of the visual therapy sessions is to essentially train your eyes to improve the ease, comfort, and efficiency of vision, to develop and improve fundamental vision abilities, and to modify the interpretation and processing of visual information.
What Does Visual Therapy Focus On? To help train the eyes, visual therapy focuses on peripheral vision, eye movements, eye-focus, visual processing, and eye teaming (both eyes working together to look at the same point at the same time).
Receive Visual Therapy At Blink Eyewear In Calgary
If you or your child would like to improve visual skills, contact the vision professionals at Blink Eyewear in Calgary. To begin the process of vision therapy, a person must first have a comprehensive eye exam with one of our qualified Calgary optometrists. After the eye exam, your eye doctor will advise you as to whether vision therapy is appropriate for you. With three convenient locations in Crowfoot in NW Calgary, West Springs in SW Calgary, and Creekside in NW Calgary, Blink Eyewear can offer you great optometry services throughout the city. To book an appointment with Blink Eyewear, call 1-403-516-2292 or fill out the online contact form.
FAQ
Q: Is visual therapy a cure for learning disabilities?
A: No, it is not. However, vision therapy is directed specifically towards solving optical problems that interfere with learning, reading, and receiving instruction educationally, and can greatly benefit those with learning disabilities.
Q: What types of vision problems can visual therapy help with?
A: The most common conditions that visual therapy helps treat are strabismus (crossed eye), amblyopia (lazy eye), diplopia (double vision), and oculomotor dysfunction (the inability to follow a moving object with the eyes or to shift eyes from one fixation point to another). If you suspect that you, or your child, are lacking visual skills, book an eye exam with Blink Eyewear.
Q: What hours are the Blink Eyewear locations open?
A: All Blink Eyewear locations are open:
- Monday: 9am-5pm
- Tuesday: 9am-5pm
- Wednesday: 9am-7pm
- Thursday: 9am-5pm
- Friday: 9am-5pm
- Saturday: 9am-3pm
- Sunday: Closed