Personal vision training, also sometimes called vision therapy, is a long-standing and heavily discussed tactic known throughout the eye health industry. You may have read about vision therapy or you may have seen videos of people on YouTube talking about their own vision therapy. There are varying opinions about vision training and the best way to train your vision, so OpDocs is starting a series discussing vision therapy and its effects on your eye health. In the first installment, we’ll discuss what vision therapy is and why people take part in it.

Vision therapy is an individualized, supervised home and/or office treatment program designed to correct visual-motor and/or perceptual-cognitive deficiencies which have various causes.

Vision therapy trains the entire visual system, which includes your eyes, brain and body. It is important to understand that vision therapy is a form of neurological training or rehabilitation. The goal of vision training is to train the patient’s brain to use the eyes to receive information effectively, comprehend it quickly and react appropriately.

Training sessions may include procedures designed to enhance the brain’s ability to control eye alignment, eye movements, focusing abilities, and eye teamwork (binocular vision).

Visual motor skills and endurance are developed through the use of specialized computer and optical devices, including therapeutic lenses, prisms, and filters. During the final stages of vision training, the patient’s newly acquired visual skills are reinforced and made automatic through repetition and integration with motor and cognitive skills.

Tune in next time for Part II: How does vision therapy work?