Neuro-Optometry
1. What is Neuro-Optometry and what are the signs that a patient can benefit from Neuro-Optometry?
Neuro optometry is a specialized field in optometry that deals with neurological disorders that affects vision.
The most obvious sign that a patients would benefit from neuro optometry is if they experience vision difficulties after sustaining a traumatic brain injury or stroke. This may include light sensitivity, blurry vision, difficulty looking at screens, double vision, dizziness when driving, reduced peripheral vision, depth perception problems.
Other less obvious signs would be difficulty concentrating, balance difficulties, headaches these symptoms can be caused by vision problems after a tbi or stroke as well.
2, How does Neuro-Optometry help patients with concussion?
Neuro optometry includes a wide variety of tools and treatments to help patients after a concussion.
First, the neuro optometric evaluation is quite different than a routine eye exam, we do a lot more testing looking into how your eyes track, focus and work together and how light information flows from the eyes to the brain and vice versa.
Through this evaluation we can diagnose the cause of your symptoms. Next comes my favorite part, which is discussing the many tools that we have to help.
Very often concussion patients will benefit from prescription glasses, these very often are very different than your regular glasses because they are prescribed to help the eye brain connection, this may include prisms, tints and filters which help organize the light information entering the eyes so that it can be more easily processed in the brain and more often than not it provides an instant improvement in symptoms.
Next we have light therapy which uses specific colored filters which can improve headaches, light sensitivity, peripheral vision among many other symptoms as well.
The last treatment that we will discuss here is neuro optometric vision therapy which is a weekly in office program where you work one on one with a vision therapist and learn specific vision procedures to improve tracking, focusing, depth perception and integrating vision with the other sensory systems.
This is a powerful way to improve visual function.
Vision Therapy
1. What is Vision Therapy and which signs indicate a child could benefit with VT?
Vision therapy is a series of exercises which build visual skills needed for everyday life from learning, to playing sports.
A few Signs that indicate a child could benefit from vision therapy are, avoidance of reading or writing, tilting the head or covering an eye when reading, poor handwriting, losing their place when reading, headaches with reading
2. How does VT help a child with a lazy eye?
A lazy eye is another name for amblyopia which is a condition where one or both eyes do not see well.
This can be caused by a high prescription, asymmetrical prescription or an eye turn.
Vision therapy is very effective at improving lazy eye through a series of exercises that challenge the weaker eye to focus and track better and then when they are ready to use the two eyes together and improve depth perception
Dry Eye
1.What is Dry Eye and what are the most common signs?
Dry eye is a condition where there is not enough tear production, or where the tears evaporate too quickly causing there to be dryness of the eyes.
The most common signs of dry eyes are burning eyes, fluctuating blurry vision, and tearing which seems counterintuitive but is very commonly report in dry eye sufferers, this is because the eyes reflexively tear due to chronic dryness
2. Explain briefly how TearCare treats dry eyes
Tear care treats evaporative dry eye (which is the most common cause of dry eyes) by gently heating the meibomian glands on the upper and lower eyelids to 113 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes.
Afterwards, I numb the eyes and use a specialized tool to gently push the softened trapped oil out of the glands, which will allow the healthy oil to flow and lubricate the eyes. Thus relieving symptoms of dry eyes.