Vision Therapy

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Vision therapy is a highly individualized, supervised treatment program designed to rehabilitate visual skills necessary for visual processing, visual motor integration, and visual perceptual skills, as well as being a treatment for amblyopia that is beyond patching and lens applications. It allows for the retraining of visual functions that have been distorted by brain injury, illness, or lack of development. 

Vision therapy programs typically include a weekly, 45-minute session in office and a home therapy program that could range from 15 to 45 minutes per day depending on the condition being treated. Vision therapy sessions include procedures designed to specifically treat patient symptoms and problems associated with:  

• Eye alignment, tracking, teaming abilities, and saccadic and pursuit eye movements
• Accommodation and focusing abilities 
• Visual motor integration skills related to balance 
• Poor binocular coordination 
• Stereopsis (depth perception) 
• Amblyopia, diplopia, strabismus, hypertropia, esotropia, esophoria, etc. 
• Computer and/or near point visual stress 
• Concussion syndromes and paresis of accommodation 
• Streff and stress-related visual performance 
• ADHD and associated near point visual stress, foveal fixation, accommodative disorders, Streff syndrome 

Therapy procedures use different techniques to train different abilities. Specialized therapeutic visual training equipment, lenses, prisms, and filters will be utilized. During the final stages of therapy, the patient’s newly acquired visual skills are reinforced and made automatic through repetition and integration with motor and cognitive skills.

Symptoms Check List

• Headaches in forehead or temples, burning or itchy eyes after near work 
• One eye turns in or out, up or down, at any time 
• Print blurs after reading, studying, or prolonged computer or near point work 
• Complaints of seeing double (diplopia), experiencing balance problems, or motion sickness
• Words appear to move or swim on the page, head turns while reading 
• Lose place frequently during reading, needs to use a finger or marker to keep place 
• Short attention span 
• Rereading or skipping lines, or omitting words, phrases, letters, or numbers while reading 
• Squints, closes, or covers one eye, tilts head extremely while working at near
• Misaligns digits in number columns 
• Writes crookedly, poorly spaced; cannot stay on lines, orientates drawings poorly on page 
• Repeatedly confuses left-right directions, has difficulty with spatial problems 
• Reverses letters and/or words in reading, writing, and copying; mirror image writing 
• Repeatedly confuses words with similar beginnings and endings 
• Dislikes reading and spelling, holds books too closely to face at desk or table 
• Makes errors in copying from chalkboard to paper or page to paper 
• Poor balance 
• Difficulty parallel parking or judging distance while passing a car or parking 
• Motion sickness 
• Fear of heights 
• Feeling of being off balance 
• Inconsistency in sports performance 
• Difficulty wearing 3D glasses in a 3D movie, unable to appreciate 3D effects in movies 
• Difficulty with bright lights 
• Migraines 
• Anxiety 
• Symptoms of Sports Related Visual Performance Stress 
• Headaches
•  Performance not up to potential 
• Wearing prescription lenses, but leaving them off during sports
• Poor eye-hand coordination 
• Performance worsens under high stress situations 
• Little or no improvement with practice 
• Making unusual errors 
• Inconsistent performance 
• Better performance on one side, or in one direction, than the other 
• Avoiding sports or getting frustrated with participating in sports 
• Early fatigue 
• Convergence insufficiency, intermittent exotropia 
• Reddened eyes or lids 

There is a Solution 

Dr. Archibald has studied the effects of stress on vision. Through the use of carefully selected stress-relieving and preventive lenses and/or visual training, you can enjoy relief from even the most stressful close-up visual conditions. Patients receive the clinical guidance needed to develop the skills which provide for an efficient visual system.