What a privilege!

A former patient came into the office to day for a follow-up check by the doctor. When she first came to vision therapy she had no binocular vision. We started by doing lots of anti-suppression activities using polaroid lenses and red and green lenses. As she became more and more aware of what each eye was seeing, she began to be able to do a basic brock string. Although a sophomore in high school, she was delighted by the float that comes when we do some of the binocular activities - like the images of the strings, for instance, or the float of the quoits vectograms. After about 32 weekly therapy sessions, she was discharged - but we continue to watch her progress and give her things to do at home, checking up on her every couple of months. Today, the doctor was thrilled to report that our patient has developed randot stereo and was enamored with the fly's wings in the exam room. The patient blamed the results on watching Avatar, the movie in 3-D. Her original motivation included a desire to see Coraline. Here's a person whose life has been changed by the expansion of her visual function. What a privilege to have been part of the journey.

3-D Vision Therapy

Some people whose eyes do not team properly don't see in three dimensions. In other words, they may lack stereo vision (stereopsis). The cause may be an eye turn (strabismus), the suppression of one eye, or some other condition to be identified by an optometrist. Until recently the experts believed that unless the condition was addressed in a young person, either by vision therapy and/or surgery, it would become "hard-wired" in the brain. In other words, no one even held out hope for an adult to obtain stereopsis. That began to change with the experience of psychologist, Dr. Sue Barry, now nicknamed "Stereo Sue." Check out how she explains what happened to her on her website, www.fixingmygaze.com, or in her book by the same title. You can also watch her on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2YqVLARZOM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9afrMMsh2w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUzJogvB0Hc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8SsUl5wb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c010cP8sKo

In the vision therapy context, I have worked with quite a few adults who had never experienced seeing in 3-D. When it begins to emerge, the delight they express is amazing- in spite of the headache that seems to accompany the adjustment to true binocularity. It takes time but to enrich the way the world looks is a reward that is truly worth the investment of time, money, and discomfort.