What Is Vision Therapy and Who Needs It?

What Is Vision Therapy and Who Needs It?

Everyone can benefit from healthy eyes and better eyesight, whether through eyewear or not. That said, vision therapy is here to ensure that you can continue excelling in your daily activities without eye issues.

With the momentous arrival of computers and their close-up, daily use by students and working people, eye therapy is becoming more important. Vision therapy helps keep your eyes healthy, reduce or eradicate eyestrain, and eventually preserve your vision. Here is what you need to know about vision therapy and whether you can benefit from it.

What Is Vision Therapy?

Vision therapy is a word eye doctors use to describe eye exercises that help improve a person’s ability to see and process what they see. The exercises involve the eyes and parts of the brain that control eyesight and help you understand what you see.

Vision therapy is to your eyes what physical therapy is to your body. It uses several tools and procedures to exercise your eyes and treat eye problems that contact lenses, eyeglasses, or eye surgery alone cannot treat. 

Who Uses Vision Therapy?

Anybody interested in making their vision better can use vision therapy. This physical exercise for your eyes and brain can relieve various eye problems, such as:

Lazy Eye (Amblyopia) or Crossed Eyes (Strabismus)

Vision therapy can treat crossed eyes or lazy eyes without the need for eyeglasses, patching, or even surgery. The therapy is quite effective for these eye issues in children but can produce desirable outcomes for individuals of any age.

Double Vision

Double vision happens when the eyes are not aligned correctly. This results in seeing two separate images of one object.

Visual Problems Related to Reading or Learning

Problems such as weak eye teaming, tracking, and focusing skills can all make it difficult to read or learn.

Convergence Insufficiency

Convergence insufficiency is where your eyes cannot focus on an object for clear vision. That usually comes from injuries that affect the nerves and eye muscles that regulate eye movement. Injuries such as severe brain trauma, brain tumors, stroke, or complications from LASIK eye surgery. 

Stress-related Vision Problems

Living in a digital world means that many people must spend a lot of time on their computer screens. Because of this, more and more people are struggling with headaches, eyestrain, and other eye-related problems.

Vision therapy can also help improve vision for: 

Special Groups of People

These include people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries or strokes. Also, people with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, or developmental delays can benefit from vision therapy.

Athletes

Athletes often exercise their eyes to improve eye-hand coordination, peripheral vision, eye teaming, tracking, and focusing. Such exercises help the athletes improve their alertness and concentration. This way, athletes can react fast to the demands of their activities.

To learn more about vision therapy and who needs it, visit Claremore Eye Associates at our office in Claremore, Oklahoma. You can also call (918) 233-3319 today to book an appointment.