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Take ball sports: the most important question is Where is the ball?

Each person on a team, or even an individual sport needs to be able to find the ball (pucks too) and play their part.

When players have a mental vision of the field of play, they can plan strategies.

If players have great 3-D vision they know where other players are, and they have an edge over the competition.

If they can track objects moving in space, then Keep your eye on the Ball is easy to follow and they score better.

The faster a ball player processes visual data, the quicker s/he can get to the goal. So in ball sports, vision is the key to success.

In a sport like snowboarding, skiing, surfing, biking your vision allows you to balance under varying circumstances. As the waves, snow, air, etc. rush past you, your ability to see and understand exactly what is happening is primal to your success and survival. The faster your visual cortex directs muscles, the better.

Because of the need for speed in most every sport, the use of contact lenses gives players an edge as well. They provide unrestricted peripheral information that glasses cannot.

Most athletes love wearing their contact lenses and many serious athletes have invested in a program of vision therapy–not as remediation for a poor visual system, but as an enhancement to beat the competition.

If this sounds like you, call us and talk to Inez about your sport!

What to do when confronted by a diagnosis like Glaucoma? First, don’t panic. This condition progresses slowly over a number of years. Second, don’t slip into denial. Keeping your eyesight depends on getting appropriate treatment. Recently studies have shown that in addition to prescription drops, or surgery, here is what you can do to help the body forestall Glaucoma.

• Enzyme Q10 has been shown to have a protective effect on the mitochondria (power source) in nerve tissue.
• Resveratrol (found in red wine) is helpful in supporting the tiny vessels that are nourishing the optic nerves.
• Caffeine has positive effects on blood flow in the brain.
• DHEA is a nutrient that protects nerve tissue.
• Ginko Biloba causes an increase in the flow of blood throughout the body which can help ganglion cells receive nourishment.
• People who have lost some vision from Glaucoma have improved their vision by going on a low-fat diet.

In Glaucoma, the ganglion nerve cells connecting the eye to the brain die, and they affect other nearby ganglion cells as well. Fluid pressure inside the eye is thought to be responsible for decreasing blood flow to cells. When this pressure is decreased by the drops your doctor prescribes, the disease progresses more slowly. Our goal is for the patient to remain sighted throughout life.

However, what happens when a bifocal wearer operates a vacuum cleaner or goes for a walk and looks down? S/he has to look over the reading zone to see the ground clearly. This means the forehead is tipped toward the ground, causing the neck to be bent over like an old person. (OKAY, so maybe bifocal wearers are old people to those under 40…) And is the neck posture different in contact wearers who only use reading glasses as needed? What would happen if I put the reading zone in the upper half of the lens? Would people turn their chins up to see straight ahead? Librarians might really like having the bifocal up high!

I haven’t tried this experiment yet. I am concerned about posture. So many patients hunch over their laptops. And some prefer the multifocals to a lens that gives them the entire screen in focus… Maybe we are all too well adapted to reading in the lower half of the field….

“While there are some clearly amazing 3D effects in these films, many children may miss out on the excitement if they actually are not able to see the 3D effect,” said Dr. Eva Strube, OD of Avenue Vision. “Unfortunately most parents have no idea how children see their world since children don’t complain if they can’t see 3D.”

The top three signs that your child may not be able to see 3D are:

• Clumsy: spills mild when pouring, trips while walking, bumps into things
• Scared of escalators, going down stairs, climbing play structures, avoids these whenever possible
• Has difficulty catching or hitting a ball

If your child has been diagnosed with Lazy Eye (Amblyopoia) or an eye turn (Strabismus) s/he will not be able to see the full 3D effects. Most 3D movies do provide other visual clues such as objects appearing smaller the further away they are, which can be see whether using both eyes or only one eye. However there are special effects that do require that you use both of your eyes at the same time. If your child doesn?t have 3D vision, s/he won?t be able to see these special effects.

Some scenes in the latest movies can make you feel as if you are on a rollercoaster ride. When a child has never seen a 3D movie before, it?s best to prepare them beforehand for what they will see. Talk to the child about how in most movies the picture stays on the screen, but in 3D movies, the picture will come forwards and backwards, filling the whole theatre. The viewer may even feel like they can reach out and touch the characters. Also be sure to let kids know that if they are uncomfortable, they can always close their eyes for a minute to eliminate the 3D effects.

During the movie, keep an eye out for any signs of Headache, Nausea, or Dizziness, or if s/he does not respond to the special effects the same way as all the kids in the audience. These are signs that your child has a vision problem, and you need to schedule an eye exam to have it checked out. If there is a problem with 3D, lazy eye, or an eye turn, it is possible to teach the eyes the skills to see 3D with exercises and activities. At our clinic we provide diagnosis and remediation of these conditions.

As our technology advances our next generations will experience more and more of the 3D imaging, and we need to prepare our young people for the future. Please call us if you need us. Avenue Vision: 303-279-3713

Also, please visit the AOA website for more information.

Vision is a process of sensory input, visual memory, form perception, motion detection, motor reflexes, cognitive manipulation and more.

Vision is learned, and thus a product of the eye-brain system.

Vision is complex and multifaceted, but we all use it instantly and take it for granted.

So the next time you want an examination of the visual system, come see us and we will look at everything!

True Dyslexia is a neurological dysfunction marked by the inability of the brain’s language centers to efficiently decode print or phonetically make the connection between written symbols and their appropriate sounds. Not all children who struggle to read, however, suffer from phonological processing problems. Although the symptoms are similar, the culprit for many may be vision, not a language-based deficit.

Margaret Livingstone, et al, from the Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School and the Dyslexia Research Laboratory, Beth Israel Hospital in Boston reports that poor visual processing plays a significant role in a large majority of children who struggle to read: “Several perceptual studies have suggested that dyslexic subjects process visual information more slowly than normal subjects. Such visual abnormalities were reported to be found in more than 75% of the reading-disabled children tested.”

The team of researchers at Harvard University and Beth Israel Hospital also reported that for Dyslexics, light (information) in the two pathways the quick (transient) and slow (sustained) systems don’t arrive at visual brain centers at the same time! As a result, for most dyslexics, words on a printed page seem to move chaotically and appear as reversals. In essence, this is a visual problem of timing and coordination. Research has shown that transient visual system deficits impact upon reading skills. A new study by David Harris of Liverpool, England shows that the second generation Chromagen lenses make reading easier for true Dyslexics by synchronizing the light signals to the brain. Dr. Strube is certified to prescribe these special filters if needed.

The visual problems associated with the reading-disabled child(dyslexics and those with visual perceptual problems) include but not limited to: spatial perception and orientation, laterality, directionality, timing, rhythm, eye teaming and coordination with flexibility, eye movement control with speed and accuracy, and visual information processing.

Vision problems can have a huge impact on academic performance and behavior in the classroom. Parents, your children use their eyes more than any previous generation. They need a comprehensive vision examination. Refraction can determine if glasses, contacts, Chromagen filters, or Vision therapy are needed.

Specific vision therapy, individualized for each patient uses lenses and prisms during movement with awareness and feedback, and provides learning experiences to improve the development of the visual skills needed for easy reading.

Children with undetected vision problems can exhibit symptoms similar to ADD. Studies show that approximately 20% of school-aged children suffer from eye teaming or focusing deficits which make remaining on task for long periods of time difficult. Like those with ADD, children with vision-based learning problems are highly distractible, have short attention spans, make careless errors, fail to complete assignments, and are often fidgety and off task. However, their inability to remain on task is caused by the discomfort of using their eyes for long periods of time at close ranges, not true deficits in attention. Unfortunately, parents and teachers are not trained to recognize the difference and these children are often misdiagnosed. The book The Mislabeled Child by Brock Eide MD and Fernette Eide MD talks about this problem in detail.

An example from our experience at Avenue vision is children with eye teaming disorders. Patients with convergence insufficiency and convergence excess often appear to have ADD or ADHD. These children have:

The connection between eye teaming problems and attention deficit disorders was recently documented in medical journals. The latest research study found children diagnosed with ADHD were three times as likely to have a convergence insufficiency than children in the rest of the population. Dr. David B. Granet, director of the Ratner Children’s Eye Center of the University of California in San Diego and a nationally known pediatric ophthalmologist, explains that because this kind of eye teaming problem causes children to have difficulty keeping both eyes focused on a close target, it becomes more difficult for them to concentrate on reading, one of the ways doctors diagnose ADHD. As a result of his research, Dr. Granet recommends that no child be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD until their visual system has been checked because the chance of a misdiagnosis is just too great. (Strabismus, Volume 13, Number 4 / December 2005, Pages: 163 – 168)

Any child who is suspected of having ADD should have Dr. Strube do a comprehensive vision examination to determine if poor visual processing is a factor in the child’s behavior. Unlike ADD which is diagnosed by a subjective checklist, there are actual numbers in her tests which determine if the child has a learning-related vision problem which is making it difficult for him to remain on task.