What is Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy is most often recommended for binocular
vision conditions that involve weak eye muscles. Weak eye muscles
often cause symptoms that include headaches, double vision, eye strain,
fatigue, and blurred vision. By exercising these weak eye muscles,
patients can learn to control and strengthen the extra-ocular muscles
and the focusing system.
Vision therapy is
physical therapy for your eye muscles!!!
Our Position on Vision Therapy
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Timothy Milburn, O.D.
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Annamarie Milburn, O.D.
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Our experience treating binocular
vision disorders has convinced us that there is a role
for vision therapy in the treatment of some vision disorders.
However, because vision therapy is only successful with
some patients and because it is not always effective in
certain eye disorders, vision therapy should only be recommended
when their is a high chance for success. A successful vision
therapy regimen is one that relieves the patient's symptoms.
It is reasonable to believe that successful therapy will
have many benefits, including academic improvement. However,
there is no solid research to prove that vision therapy
can impact academic performance.
Vision therapy is best at treating the
symptoms of some common visual dysfunctions including
amblyopia, accommodative insufficiency, and convergence
insufficiency. These three disorders are easily treated
and respond quickly to therapy. Other conditions can
be treated, but their response to therapy is much less
predictable. We believe that vision therapy should be
used on a limited basis for the conditions that respond
best to treatment.
In all cases, we believe that the success
of any vision therapy regimen depends greatly on the
patient's level of commitment to treatment. In most cases,
highly motivated patients who closely stick to their
course of therapy will experience the best results. Prior
to therapy, all patients should be informed about their
chances for success and alternative treatment options
to vision therapy.
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Is Vision Therapy Controversial?
Yes, it can be. The American Association for Pediatric
Ophthalmology and Strabismus and the American Optometric Association
seem to hold differing views on the effectiveness of vision therapy.
Our doctors believe that these two different positions can be reconciled.
Our position on vision therapy (as stated above) is a middle ground
between the differing view points of the AAPOS and the AOA.
The American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology
and Strabismus released a policy statement in September of 2001 regarding
Vision Therapy. The AAPOS policy states that there is no evidence
that Vision Therapy can be used to treat learning disabilities. Click
here to visit the AAPOS page for official policy statements and positions. However,
the AAPOS does not address the most fundamental question for vision
therapy: does vision therapy relieve the symptoms of binocular vision
disorders? Doctors Milburn and Milburn agree with the position of
the AAPOS. In fact, there is very little evidence that vision therapy
can directly treat any learning disability. However, the AAPOS failed
to address the overall effectiveness of vision therapy to relieve
symptoms such as headache, double vision, and eye strain.
The American Optometric Association and the College
of Optometrists in Vision Development have released position papers
in favor of vision therapy. Click
here to visit the AOA policy on vision therapy. The AOA position
states that vision therapy can treat reading and learning impairments
brought on by binocular vision problems. There is a large amount
of anecdotal evidence to support this claim. It seems reasonable
to think that proper visual functioning can improve learning. However,
it will always be difficult to prove whether or not this statement
is factual.
The AAPOS argues that most vision therapy patients
with a learning disability are typically being tutored and treated
by a school psychologist while they are simultaneously going through
vision therapy. Certainly it is true that any academic progress that
a student achieves can not be attributed to any one source. The optometrist,
the tutor and the school psychologist all contribute equally to a
child's success. Therefore, it is not always possible to prove if
vision therapy was responsible for academic improvement. However,
patients and their parents will know that vision therapy was successful
if the patient's symptoms have been relieved. |
