EXCELerated Vision

Reading and Attention Problems Found with Common Eye Condition in Children ...A Proven Treatment for Convergence Insufficiency

Parents, teachers and health care professionals should see this video by the National Eye Institute. Too often children with reading and attention problems are overlooked in the healthcare delivery system, labeled with ADHD, learning disabilities and/or behavior problems when instead they have a common undiagnosed eye condition known as convergence insufficiency (CI).

Watch this video and see what the director of the National Eye Institute (NEI), researchers as well as a mother of a child who had CI, have to say. The results of the National Institute of Health (NIH) "double blind" multicenter research project completed in 2008 found that the only proven treatment for CI is office-based vision therapy. Other approaches such as home based remedies or prism glasses are not effective.

Children with CI often have symptoms that can impact reading, learning and attention. After treatment the patient will often show dramatic improvement in reading, learning and attention and concentration for near vision visual tasks.

At Wow Vision Therapy, office-based vision therapy is provided by a Doctor supervised Board Certified Vision Therapist along with vision therapy assistants.  Once successfully treated, the results are life long without the need for further maintenance treatment.

Dan L. Fortenbacher, O.D., FCOVD

Better 3-D Vision and Vision Tracking..."Super Bowl" results for High School Student- U of M Baseball Scholarship

Better eye coordination and 3-D vision helps improve performance in many ways. Simply put, "track it better" hit it better in baseball and read it faster and easier in school and academics.

Read about one of our 17 year old patients and his success from vision therapy. His name is Cameron Luther. Cam's initial diagnosis before treatment was accommodative (eye focusing)and oculomotor (eye tracking) dysfunction . He presented for a vision evaluation because he and his parents were very concerned about his difficulty with reading efficiency. He was very frustrated keeping his place and concentrating on his reading material. Following 25 sessions of office-based vision therapy Cam has improved in many ways. Here is Cameron's story in his own words:

"Since beginning vision therapy, I have noticed improvements in nearly every aspect of my vision, but there are two improvements that have stood out amongst the rest. They are my reading speed and my ability to track a baseball when hitting.

At the start, my reading speed was not where it needed to be. In my preliminary test, as a seventeen year old, I was reading at around a sixth grade efficiency. This really took a toll on my ACT score, since the test is timed and requires a lot of reading. I knew I was bright and the potential to read faster and score better, but my eyes had trouble focusing. Throughout my vision therapy I noticed steady improvements and by the end, my reading speed and efficiency was at the level of a third year college student. Thanks to this improvement, I was able to reach my goal, and scored a 33 on the ACT.

Last spring (2008), I had had a mediocre baseball season, and I was getting worried. Having just finished my junior year of high school, that summer was going to be my last chance to be noticed by the colleges. As it turns out, the vision therapy which I had originally done to improve my reading, helped a great deal with baseball as well. I felt like I could track the ball out of the pitcher's hand and could read the spin on a curve-ball like never before. As it turns out, I led the Midwest region in home runs over the summer with nineteen, and was offered a baseball scholarship by the University of Michigan! I doubt any of this would have worked out had it not been for the vision therapy.

Lastly, I would like to thank my vision therapist, Dr. Lindsey, Dr. Fortenbacher and everyone at WoW Vision Therapy. You all really made a difference."

Cameron Luther

The Benefit of "Two-Eyed" Vision...The Ability to See 3-D!

A common question asked by parents of children with strabismus ("crossed-eyes") is, "What is my child seeing?"

My answer is, "It is not what they are seeing, it is what they are not seeing".

What the child with a crossed eye is not seeing is 3-D or stereo vision. In other words they are missing out on a quality of vision experience that is often difficult to put into words, but, in general means the ability to see the volume of space that exists between objects in our environment.

Surgery to correct crossed eyes may offer a cosmetic solution to crossed eyes, but surgery alone does not automatically provide the patient with stereo vision. However, office-based vision therapy is an effective treatment to not only help the patient acquire straight eyes, but also develop the brain's to gain the ability to see...3D!

Recently, Joe Palca (childhood photo above) columinist of National Public Radio, covered this in more detail with a personal perspective. Click here to read the article and even better to hear the audio story!

Dan L. Fortenbacher, O.D., FCOVD

What is Happening in a Vision Therapy Session?

What goes on in a vision therapy session? WebMD Daily helps to answer this question by a facinating video news story, entiled "Problem Child? Get Therapy for his Eyes.

Find out more when you view the WebMD "webisode". This will give you a sample of what is going on in a VT session and why patients are getting better when they are in office-based optometric vision therapy.

Problem Child? Get Therapy for his Eyes!

Dan L. Fortenbacher, O.D.,FCOVD