Illinois College of Optometry Home Coming

Illinois College of Optometry Home Coming Save that Date!

Outcomes of surgery in children with early-onset exotropia

Outcomes of surgery in children with early-onset exotropia

.....[this study's purpose was to]....evaluate the clinical characteristics and surgical outcomes of early-onset exotropia and to compare differences between constant and intermittent exotropia......The mean age of onset of exodeviation in 45 patients was 9.3±3.8 months. Mean age at surgery was 4.5±2.4 years, and the mean postoperative follow-up period was 17.3 months .... 23% showed non-alignment of more than±10 prism diopters (PD).....bifixation developed in 10 patients (29%). .....

Comments: Once again post strabismus surgical outcomes show a high percentage of children with poor outcomes. Please note that this study put a positive spin on its outcomes ....but no matter how you tell the story of strabismus surgery, it always has up to 1/3 not being helped. Use caution when recommending surgery, especially if you do not do vision therapy first. DM

Free Technology for Teachers: The Five Best Tools for Creating Videos Without Installing Software

I work with teachers all the time. This ones for you! M

Free Technology for Teachers: The Five Best Tools for Creating Videos Without Installing Software

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/04/the-five-best-tools-for-creating-videos.html#.UWMEvpPvt8E

Does Optometric Vision Therapy Work?

Lyons Family Eye Care Vision Therapy Success Story
Our patient was not only successful at vision therapy but he also saw many improvements in academic perforamance and other areas as well. Pictured: LFEC optometrist Dr. Dominick Maino, LFEC successful patient MT and his mother, and LFEC therapist Lauren. We are very proud of MT and his family for doing so very well!

I am frequently asked, "Does Optometric Vision Therapy Work?" by the families I work with every day. If they mean, does vision therapy improve vision function such as eye movements, focusing, eye teaming and 3D vision ... the answer is a resounding YES! If they mean.... does vision therapy work to improve vision information processing....the answer is YES! If they mean that amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus can be improved...the answer is YES!

 If by work they mean will reading and academic performance improve....the research is not quite as clear on this....and vision therapy does not teach a child how to read, or spell or do math....however, we know that vision affects learning and that the current research available would also suggest the answer should be yes.

One of the Facebook pages I belong to had a participant that asked the question above....and here are the responses.....

......My son went to the eye doctor today. He recommends 6 sessions of Vision Therapy. Have any of your children had improvement using VT?


......We had tremendous success but I'm not sure what 6 sessions would do. I think my son went for 6 or 8 months.

..... I would have to say yes, my son went through two set of therapy one for convergence and the other for ocular motor dyspraxia. My son made honor role this twice

.......The Doctor said, they will do the evaluation, the 6 sessions, then re-evaluate. Hoping they work!

........ VT changed my son's life. Best of luck for your son!

........ mine has already had 24 sessions..her attitude has improved tremendously..she's started to want to read certain books now for the first time in 2 years..she got straight a's last quarter and should this quarter too..you can tell she is understanding a a lot more..she supposedly has about 40 more sessions to go possibly though so we have only really started. mine was also getting treatment for babesiosis after 1 year of antibiotics for lyme and earobics at the same time. I think the vt and the anti malaria drugs are both helping..lyme dr said ci will disappear when her illness goes away..i don't think it will disappear but I think meds are helping her vt work faster


........i think i'm seeing that with my daughter but trying not to get too hopeful that she'll get back to what I thought she was capable of
.......My son did his therapy in grades 2 and 3. He was reading at grade 1.1 when he started (February of grade 2). By the end of grade 3 he was reading at grade 3.7 so almost at appropriate grade level!! Other day to day changes we noticed were his ability to catch a ball, put Lego together, play cards. None of which he could do prior to a he was seeing double most of the time.

......... My daughter did VT during 5th grade. She was reading on a 1.4 grade level. Once she was done she was reading on a 9.8 level! She has so much more confidence! Grades are A's and B's. Much better than before.

........ My college age daughter did VT and it made an enormous difference for her. She just got her BA!

.........Congrats to all of them! My son is behind in reading and math. School actually was doing special education testing for learning disabilities-when he was diagnosed with CI. I'm hoping with VT he has an improvement-just to prove to school that he hasn't needed the remedial classes and extra help they always insisted he needed!!

......... my daughter is in 2nd grade and was recently diagnosed. Finally a reason behind her difficulty with reading! We began an online therapy program about a month ago. Will have her reevaluated in 2 months. So nice to read all of the success stories.Good Stuff being done!

.................my childs testing actually showed the problems but they ignored everything because she had 2 ear infections,when tested and they decided she was just average..now she's proving how wrong they were..a school psych told me I'd never figure out why my child was answering questions in a bizarre fashion...hope those words are really tasty school psych (if you follow my posts..prob not smart enough to do so)..can you tell i hold on to intense anger to a system who wouldn't lift a finger to help my child


....... I feel the same way! My son was diagnosed ODD, ADD, and most recent with Anxiety and Depression. After all the medications to control all these symptoms for years and I find out they might not have been needed! One teacher told my husband and I, our so...See More
........ I tried in every way possible to educate our system..they are "politely" ignoring me..if people can prove this problem causes educational issues turn they'd have to pay for treatment and they don't want that..also it,would,then require less teachers and,that's a big no no to ever push..what schools need are tests for it and qualified vision therapists for it..not to mention intelligent psychs who know,about it plus,the cognitive impact of lyme....

Comments: We should not confuse testimonials with research. When these testimonials are heard over and over again....decade after decade....you know, however, that the research needs to catch up to the clinical reality. Optometry and especial, my ophthalmology colleagues, need to keep up with the current research so that they can either provide vision therapy in their office or refer these patients to those who do. If you are looking for a doctor to help your child with learning related vision problems, please log on to the College of Optometrists in Vision Development and the Optometric Extension Program Foundation websites .... or if you live in the Chicago area the Illinois Eye Instititue or Lyons Family Eye Care (I provide care at both of these fine health care facilities.... so I'm just a bit biased!) If you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. DM

How to Make Vision Therapy Home Exercises Fun!

How to Make Vision Therapy Home Exercises Fun!

A big part of our Vision Therapy program is home exercises. In Vision Therapy, newly acquired visual skills are reinforced and made automatic through repetition and by integration with motor and cognitive skills. The key word I like to focus on is repetition. Seeing our Vision Therapist once a week is great and recommended, but the work still has to continue at home. Home exercises should be done at least 4-6 times a week for best results, and it is through repetition of these exercises the visual system will be greatly improved.  ....

Comments: Read more by clicking on the title. DM

Developmental dyslexia and vision

 

 

 

Developmental dyslexia and vision

Developmental dyslexia affects almost 10% of school-aged children and represents a significant public health problem. Its etiology is unknown. The consistent presence of phonological difficulties combined with an inability to manipulate language sounds and the grapheme–phoneme conversion is widely acknowledged. Numerous scientific studies have also documented the presence of eye movement anomalies and deficits of perception of low contrast, low spatial frequency, and high frequency temporal visual information in dyslexics. Anomalies of visual attention with short visual attention spans have also been demonstrated in a large number of cases. Spatial orientation is also affected in dyslexics who manifest a preference for spatial attention to the right. This asymmetry may be so pronounced that it leads to a veritable neglect of space on the left side. The evaluation of treatments proposed to dyslexics whether speech or oriented towards the visual anomalies remains fragmentary. The advent of new explanatory theories, notably cerebellar, magnocellular, or proprioceptive, is an incentive for ophthalmologists to enter the world of multimodal cognition given the importance of the eye's visual input.

Comments: Ophthalmology in the United States has, for decades, stated that vision has nothing to do with academics and in particular reading. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, ophthalmology in the USA still maintains that vision has nothing to do with learning. Well here's a paper in the May 2013 issue of Clinical Ophthalmology by several French ophthalmologists that reviews developmental dyslexia and vision. Guess what they found? Yep, many aspects of vision and vision information process does affect how we learn. This means that if a vision deficit is present we can probably "fix" it with optometric vision therapy. that's good news for our patients, their families, their teachers and all involved. The FREE full version of this paper is available on line at http://www.dovepress.com/articles.php?article_id=13037 .  Please download this and share with all you know. Don't forget to tell our ophthalmology colleagues, that they should read this review as well. Sooner would be better than later. DM

Eyes on the ball: Vision therapy leads to success at the plate for Forest Grove's Levi Egg

Eyes on the ball: Vision therapy leads to success at the plate for Forest Grove's Levi Egg

When a seventh-inning fastball screamed off the bat, flew past the fence and over the center field scoreboard standing roughly 400 feet away from home plate, a collective awe was heard from the crowd at Milwaukie High School in early March.

For the Forest Grove baseball team, which was playing Milwaukie in an early nonconference game, its surprise wasn't in the shear distance that the ball traveled – although Vikings head coach Kevin Tucker couldn't confirm if the ball had yet to land after the game. The surprise came in the form of whose bat it came off of. .....
....Situated in a small room inside Pacific's Optometry center is Dr. Graham Erickson's playground. Balance beams run across the floor, balls hang from the ceiling and a 20-foot-long machine equipped with dozens of flashing red lights sits in the corner.
The room itself isn't extravagant, until you consider the clientele who have passed through it. Erickson has trained some of the world's elite athletes with the equipment in that room, ranging from baseball stars to Olympians.
Erickson himself is a professor at Pacific, the author of "Sports Vision: Vision Care for the Enhancement of Sports Performance" and one of the men Egg sought to help him hit a baseball. ....

Comments: Dr. Erickson is a colleague of mine. He is a leading authority on sports vision and does incredible work at PUCO. This story illustrates the fine work he and his colleagues do at Pacific University College of Optometry! Read the full story by clicking on the title above. DM

American Academy of Optometry: An Awesome Program

Binocular Vision/Pediatrics

Symposia Highlights:
Binocular Vision, Perception & Pediatric Optometry Section Symposium:
“Management of Adult Strabismus: Controversies & Conundrums”
Wednesday, October 23 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Strabismus treatment is not only for kids! Adult strabismus, whether recent-onset or longstanding, compromises binocular function, can cause diplopia and other symptoms, and is associated with wide-ranging effects on various aspects of patients’ lives, particularly psychosocial functioning. Clinical pearls for non-surgical and surgical management and pre- and post-surgical considerations for patients with adult strabismus will be provided. Speakers are Susan Cotter, OD, MS, FAAO, David Stager Sr., MD, Jonathan M. Holmes, MD, and Richard London, MS, OD, FAAO.
Lectures and Workshops:

Wednesday, Oct. 23	Thursday, Oct. 24	Friday, Oct. 25	Saturday, Oct. 26
8-9 AM Things Aren’t Always as They Appear Richard London	9-11 AM Eye on Reading John Tassinari, Eric Borsting	2-3 PM Visual Information Processing (VIP) for Your Very Important Patients Don Lyon	10-11 AM Pediatric Cortical Visual Impairment Dominick Maino
9-10 AM How to Examine Infants Toddlers and Preschoolers Wendy Marsh-Tootle	11 AM-12 PM Management of Accommodative Disorders Kelly Frantz	3-4 PM Handling Hard to Handle Kids Regina Garriott, Rachel Coulter	11 AM-12 PM Infantile Esotropia-Diagnosis and Treatment Curtis Baxstrom
10 AM-12 PM Efficient and Effective Diagnosis and Treatment of Strabismus and Amblyopia David Kirschen	1:30-2:30 PM Cortical Visual Impairment and Blindness: Functional Implications and Rehabilitation Kia Eldred	4-6 PM Common Pediatric Ocular Diseases and Their Treatments Christine Allison	12:30-1:30 PM A Practical Approach to Traumatic Brain Injury for the Primary Care OD Geeta Girdher, Navjit Sanghera
2-3 PM Management of Acquired Binocular Vision Disorders in the Adult Population Kia Eldred	2:30-3:30 PM Management Options for the Diplopic Patient Richard London		2:30-4:30 PM Diagnosis and Management of Intermittent Exotropia: Pearls and Paradigms Susan Cotter, Angela Chen
	3:30-4:30 PM Challenges in Amblyopia Management Timothy Hug
	4:30-5:30 PM Sports Vision Grand Rounds Graham Erickson, Fraser Horn

Learning Disabilities Affect Up To 10 Per Cent Of Children

Learning Disabilities Affect Up To 10 Per Cent Of Children

Up to 10 per cent of the population are affected by specific learning disabilities (SLDs), such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and autism, translating to 2 or 3 pupils in every classroom according to a new study.

The study - by academics at UCL and Goldsmiths - also indicates that children are frequently affected by more than one learning disability. ....

 Comment: How many have learning related vision problems? How many are misdiagnosed? Have all children who struggle academically evaluated by a developmental optometrist. Go to http:/www.COVD.org to find a doc. DM

A Night's Sleep Enhances A Musicians Skill When Practicing A New Melody

A Night's Sleep Enhances A Musicians Skill When Practicing A New Melody

A new study that examined how the brain learns and retains motor skills provides insight into musical skill.

Performance of a musical task improved among pianists whose practice of a new melody was followed by a night of sleep, says researcher Sarah E. Allen, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The study is among the first to look at whether sleep enhances the learning process for musicians practicing a new piano melody......