9 Reasons Why You Should Consider Vision Therapy for Lazy Eye
Posted on Mon, Feb 06, 2012 @ 08:00 AM
We’ve blogged repeatedly on the benefits of vision therapy for lazy eye (amblyopia). Within all those posts are plenty of reasons why you should consider vision therapy for lazy eye. Here are 9 very good ones.
1. Conventional patching doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Amblyopia is caused by poor binocular vision. Patching may only cause short-term improvement, but it doesn’t address the core issue.
2. People of all ages can benefit. In the past, it was thought that only people who fell within the critical period (under the age of eleven) could recover from lazy eye. The truth is that people of all ages can retrain their visual system with the right therapy.
3. The eye isn’t lazy or weak. Your lazy eye is likely to be just as strong as the other eye. The issue is that, for some reason, your binocular vision has been impaired, and the signals from the amblyopic eye have been turned off.
4. Treatment doesn’t involve surgery. Vision therapy is a non-invasive approach to retraining your visual system. No surgery is required.
5. Studies prove patching with vision therapy is highly effective. Recent studies indicate that the best way to treat amblyopia is to combine patching with vision therapy.
6. Chances for rapid improvement are better in younger children. Because a child’s visual system is developing, using vision therapy at a young age to improve visual skills can yield more rapid results.
7. Vision therapy treatments can reduce your child’s clumsiness. One of the common symptoms of amblyopia is clumsiness. We often hear about amblyopic patients running into things and being uncoordinated in physical activities. Again, this is a result of poor depth perception due to poor binocular vision.
8. Treatments should help improve quality of life over the long-term. Remember, attending to the binocular vision problem is designed to get at the root of the problem. Vision therapy is designed to be a long-term solution, so you won’t find yourself frustrated and back at square one six months down the road.
9. The approach may mean patching isn’t necessary. In some cases, a simple combination of the correct prescriptive lenses and vision therapy can help correct amblyopia.
Your child may not realize they have amblyopia. When the brain starts to ignore the signals from the amblyopic eye, it doesn’t alert your child. As a result, your child may be struggling in school and socially, and not even realize that amblyopia is the culprit.
(Photo by VISION Vocation Guide)
To learn more, download our Free Report "Lazy Eye: Understanding and Treating Amblyopia." It provides an overview of the condition, links to research, and details on effective treatments.
The Vision Therapy Center has helped over 2,000 people overcome vision problems since 1995, and has Wisconsin vision therapy offices in Brookfield and Madison.