Therapeutic Prescription Drug Services
An optometrist with the designation "therapeutics license" has completed an extensive course of study to allow the use of certain drugs in the management of eye conditions. These optometrists have the ability to prescribe drugs for "red eye" from bacterial infections and allergies, and can remove foreign particles from the eye caused by accidents from plants, glass or metal. These doctors are available "on call" after hours to assist their patients with urgent care needs, often saving their patients long waits and costly visits to hospital emergency rooms.
Laser Vision Correction
Many optometrists have taken additional training so that they can advise and prepare their patients for laser vision correction. Optometrists can help determine if a patient is a good candidate for laser correction and can answer the patient’s questions about how the procedure works and what the patient can expect. After the appropriate testing is complete, the optometrist will co-mange with an ophthalmologist colleague offering the best laser correction technique for that patient. The optometrist will also follow the patient’s progress after the procedure to be sure that the patient achieves the best results.
Low Vision
Sometimes an individual may have vision that cannot be corrected to "normal" 20/20 with regular glasses or contact lenses. Causes of sub-normal or low vision can be either birth defects or loss of vision from diseases such as macular degeneration, diabetes, or retinitis pigmentosa. Special optical devices including magnifiers, telescopes, binoculars, and computerized devices can be used to help a patient suffering from vision loss. Use of low vision aids enables a patient with low vision to make the most of their remaining vision, allowing them to resume their activities of daily living such as reading, watching TV, using a computer, walking and driving.
Vision Therapy for Binocular Vision Disorders
Vision therapy is an individualized treatment program prescribed to improve conditions like "crossed eyes" (strabismus) or "lazy eye" (amblyopia), and can help a patient learn specific vision skills. Such skills include eye movement and tracking control, focusing control, eye coordination, and teamwork of the two eyes. In addition to the use of lenses, prisms, and 3D stereo viewers, there are many different procedures that can be used. Some, using stereo viewers or video games, may seem like child’s play. More sophisticated equipment and instruments are also used to increase the eye’s ability to see and thebrain’s ability to understand the visual information.
Vision Therapy for Learning Disabilities
The eyes are actually extensions of the brain. Once the eyes capture the visual images by moving and focusing, the optic nerves transmit the sensory information to the visual cortex in the brain. Within the visual cortex, the information will be interpreted for depth perception, and will be transmitted to other areas of the brain so that the visual info can be integrated with other sensory data (e.g. hearing, touch, smell, balance) and processed for output (e.g. movement, speech, writing). Sometimes a person will have a deficit in the ability to process visual information, regardless of whether the eyesight is a clear "20/20". Symptoms of visual perception disorders include poor visual memory for letters and words, reversals of letters when writing, poor sense of direction, dyslexia- type problems when reading and writing, difficulty copying, and poor handwriting. Visual perception deficits can be improved through vision therapy. Optometrists are a vital part of the multi-disciplinary team involved in treating children with learning disabilities.
- For more info, please visit www.covd.org and www.children-special-needs.org
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