Vision Therapy After Surgery

In this video, a mother in Malaysia shares her story of how her son’s strabismus (eye turn) was aligned with vision therapy. He had a surgery to correct the eye turn at a young age, but it returned shortly afterwards. This is very common, because an eye turn is not a problem with the eyes or muscles. It is a problem with how the brain is using the two eyes. The brain needs to be taught how to process the visual information from both eyes effectively, otherwise it will return to old habits like shutting off one eye or turning it in/out again to reduce confusion, even if the eyes are initially aligned cosmetically with surgery.

Sometimes, parents think it’s not necessary to try and align the eyes as long as they’re not bothered by the look and the patient has good eyesight. However, good vision is more than just seeing clearly! Your child might be missing out on good depth perception, and you’d be doing him/her a huge disservice. For the boy in the video, not only was he able to straighten his eyes, but he started to see the world in a beautiful, new way!  You don’t know what you are missing if you’ve never experienced it. In the video, he shares how his world changed and everything looked different after vision therapy – he is now able to see space between objects, judge the height of stairs, see layers in tree branches, and more!

Watch the video below to learn more about successful treatment of strabismus  with vision therapy, and the importance of depth perception.

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How Life Looks With Strabismus

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“My eyes were never lazy. My brain just got confused.” YES!!!👏👏👏

Filmmaker James Robinson put together an excellent video to demonstrate what it’s like to have two eyes that don’t, as he says, “collaborate.” You’ll see in his old photos that his eyes started out turning inward (esotropia), but they now turn outward (exotropia). This is sadly not unusual to see after surgery, where the eye muscles are cut in a brute force attempt to make the eyes cooperate, but vision therapy can help teach the brain how to use them together. Well worth the 12 minutes to watch!

Eyes are NOT LAZY!!

Continue ReadingHow Life Looks With Strabismus
Read more about the article Non-Surgical Correction of Exotropia

Non-Surgical Correction of Exotropia

M came to us because she was diagnosed with exotropia in her right eye, which means her right eye tended to drift out, so her eyes were not aligned. When M first started, she was unaware when this would happen, but when she was told by other people, she was able to fix it. She wanted to gain further awareness and control over her eye doing this because it started happening on a daily basis, mainly when she was tired or was watching TV for a long time, and her friends at school started commenting on it more frequently, so she was beginning to get more self-conscious. M’s goals for vision therapy was to increase awareness of when her eye was doing this and learn more skills to realign her eyes so both eyes could work better together.

After vision therapy, M was really happy with her progress because her right eye rarely turned out. Her Mom and other family members also commented that it was not happening often. If her eye did turn out, it was very infrequent, and M now felt when it happened. She has much more awareness of what her eyes were doing, and felt she gained better skills to realign her eyes if it did turn out. Congratulations M! We will miss you and your love of gymnastics.
#visiontherapy #exotropia #success #nosurgery

Continue ReadingNon-Surgical Correction of Exotropia
Read more about the article Vision Therapy Helped Eye Turn

Vision Therapy Helped Eye Turn

We’ve had a ton of VT grads this year, so we have to get back into the habit of sharing their success! 🥳🎉

N came to us because he was diagnosed with alternating exotropia, meaning both of his eyes took turns turning outwards. N had poor control over his eye movement skills and tended to move his head along with moving his eye, instead of being able to separate the two.

After vision therapy, N’s family members said they didn’t notice his eyes turn nearly as much as they used to, and N was much more aware of it. If it did happen, he could now have the awareness and control to realign them. Congratulations N! We will miss you and your love of hockey and playing new games!

Continue ReadingVision Therapy Helped Eye Turn