My new job

  I got called in to work yesterday afternoon, and as I was getting ready to leave I told the boys bye and that I was headed into work. Levi looks at me all puzzled and says, "But I thought you got fired?" I laughed all the way there. He really loves it that I am home so much more now, and so do I!!!

A lot of people have been asking what I am doing at my new job so I thought I would explain it. I am a Vision Therapist. I work with people (mostly children) to retrain their eyes, muscles and brains to function together. Even a person with 20/20 vision can have issues with how their eye muscles and brain work together to interpret visual data. 

A bit of background: every minute our brains take in millions of bits of data and process it. Over two-thirds of that data is visual. When a baby is born, the eyes, muscles and brain do not have all the connections to process data. Over the first months and years of life, we develop the ability to process the data. If there is anything that goes wrong during that process, the connections can be faulty. Examples would be illness during that period of development, premature birth, muscle weakness in the eyes (lazy eye or crossed eyes) etc. Our brains are amazingly adept at compensating, so a child that has an issue may develop amazing language skills, but their motor development may be lacking. Or they may be an amazing athlete, but struggle in school. These types of vision problems are often picked up in school as either reading/math problems or attention problems. (Think about it, if the words on the board or page tend to wiggle and go double, would you want to keep paying attention or would your mind drift off???) 

Our doctors have specialized testing that allows them to pick up issues with how the eyes, muscles and brain are working together (even in infants). If they see a problem, they will schedule more intensive testing (which is part of what I am learning) We test extensively for how a person processes data and where there might be a issue. The earlier a problem is caught and addressed the easier it can be fixed. Children's brains and muscles are much more responsive to re-training than adults. Plus, if we can correct the issues before they are too dependent on their compensation mechanisms, they won't have developed bad habits that they will have to overcome.

The therapies consist of re-training the visual system, and depend on the specific issue each patient faces. A child with a lazy eye will get exercises to build up the weak muscles and then re-train the eyes to work together. A patient who cannot focus their eyes at close distances will be put through exercises to gradually increase the ability to converge (bring the eyes together to focus). We have some really cool equipment to work with and some very basic things too. 

We focus on a whole body approach, working in OT (occupational therapy) and PT (physical therapy) concepts. The eyes are part of the entire system, and to get everything working well you have to work it all together. We have balance beams, balance boards, trampolines, balls, etc. We have a lot of fun while accomplishing great things. 

Tomorrow I will share some of our success stories. Be prepared to be amazed. I know I am!!!