May 2011 Blog Posts (22)

Can you spot the 4 Pediatric/Binocular Vision Illinois College of Optometry Faculty members singing in the Illinois College of Optometry's Graduate and Faculty Choir for ICO's graduation ceremonies at Rockefeller Chapel University of Chicago.

Yesterday I was in my private office examing a patient who had several binocular vision problems. Suddenly my phone dings. I usually turn it off while I'm seeing patients...but I had forgotten to do so this day. I quicky checked to see what it was....and it turned out to be a patient of mine who had 3D Vision Syndrome.....with ALL the symptoms. We did OVT and she could once again go to a 3D movie and not throw up!

Now she was texting me to let me know that she could ride in a moving…

I just had an opportunity to do the final review of  the next issue of Optometry & Vision Development volumne 42 #2, 2011. This issue is dedicated to Dr. John Streff, a pioneer of developmental optometry and features many of his articles. It will be going to press shortly. While we wait for the online version...or for it to arrive at our office via snail-mail here's the Table of Contents to wet your appetite!

Editorials

Mistakes Were Made…

My students and I have created another home optometric vision therapy video. This video shows you how to do the LifeSaver Cards BI to improve divergence/anti-suppression/etc. and is less than 10 minutes in length.



Although this video is copyrighted, I have given it to the public domain for use at no cost for non-commercial purposes only.



Please use this video to help your patients or to teach you students.



Dominick M. Maino, OD, MEd, FAAO, FCOVD-A…

This video says it so well. But, who will carry the torch for parents and children with vision related learning problems? If you are a parent who has had a child in vision therapy you know better than anyone. Yet there are so many parents who have not found help for their child because they were not informed or worse yet missinformed.

Sovoto is here to help people reach out and touch the lives of others who are looking to find  help for their…

Do you see two moons and stare at broccoli?

Or perhaps you find the little circles on orange peels and the space between orange pulp to be incredibly captivating while your friends and family don't understand why you just won't stop staring and eat.

Are you an adult doing vision therapy in the SF Bay Area and want to meet other adult VT patients on the road to 3D?

I'd like to meet other adults who are doing vision therapy in the San Francisco…

I rode in the car as a passenger today. While traveling a short way out of town, I did some eye exercises and kicked myself into stereo. I'm always taken with how sharp my vision is in 3-D. While going at a good clip, I amused myself by focusing on blades of tall grass, places in the landscape and on parts of the roadway. I find that those places I focus on become very textured and time seems to slow down when I grab them in stereo.

My wife brought home a pair of anaglyph red/green…

We worked with the rope image with the overhead projector today. Dr. Brennan then had me look into a stereoscope and gave me two different panels to work with. My eyes fused both sides of each panel properly. She had me also focus on small blocks near and far and that caused my stereo vision kicked in for an hour.

Since I had previously learned that driving was less of an issue for me while in stereo, I stopped by a big mall. Malls have always been difficult places to walk and not get…

This video "Optometric Vision Therapy: LifeSaver Cards Base Out" has been created by my students and I for student and patient use. It may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes only.

If you have any…

Developmental optometrists and vision therapists, please incorporate psychological assistance into your practice for adult strabismics doing VT. The non-visual side effects (nausea, extreme fatigue, motion sickness/vertigo, sensitivity to noise, inability to concentrate, etc, etc) are enough to drive a sane person crazy, not to mention the visual changes of intermittent double vision, moving objects, seeing people with two noses and four eyes, and the changes in depth…

Stereo vision kicked in today around noon. I saw in depth more on than off for four hours. Faded briefly four times but kept coming back. 



Started in a union meeting. While watched a presentation I became aware of watching it in full stereo. Left the meeting and walked down 6th Avenue, again in stereo. I bought an orange from a vender so I could toss it up and catch it for a while during my walk downtown and never dropped it. Fantastic color. Then I opened it and ate it - it was so…

Optometry & Vision Development and AAO Fellowship

The American Academy of Optometry now specifically states that Optometry & Vision Development (OVD) is considered a peer reviewed publication for their AAO Clinical and Scientific Candidate Point System towards Fellowship.

As the editor of OVD, I want to invite all of you to write…

Good session today. I saw a 3-D rope loop image with polarized glasses and had 2 points of base out movement after another test (did I say this correctly?). As I understand it, base out movement means my eyes are turning in and working together.

Started seeing what felt like mild 3-D after the testing and actually kept that feeling throughout the entire 35 minute drive home. It seemed to slip away momentarily when an ambulance screamed by but I let myself sink back into it. Driving in…

Uh oh! Be careful what you lament, it just might come to you in depth!

Today on my vision therapy blog, One Eyed Princess, I wrote a post titled: "Birds and the bees and I look at trees".

 …

My first progress evaluation went well, thought I'm still 'failing' some tests. Dr. Brennan reminded me that it's all about baby steps. My eyes are starting to work together. They certainly feel stronger. When placing prisms of different strengths in front of each eye while the other was patched, each eye discerned the small movements introduced well. I'm also able to fuse red and green shapes at close distances when wearing the color lenses and hold them for a bit.

For me, the most…

Life has been moving slowly for me since I started vision therapy. I sleep a lot more. But now I spend a lot of time staring at trees and not only smelling the proverbial roses, but admiring them in real life from all angles. As I move slowly, other aspects of my personal and professional life move at an equally slow pace. It's as though I inhabit some other planet where time moves slower than on planet earth.

Yesterday, I was on my regular Saturday hike with my Brazilian…

A former student and now colleague of mine put together an iPhone app to determine the presence of a paretic muscle. Check out http://mainosmemos.blogspot.com/search?q=Park%27s+3+Step+iPhone+App

Dominick…

I wear progressive lenses in my primary glasses. At 59, my vision is pretty bad for reading, computer work and distance. I had reading glasses but rarely wore them. I switch between computer glasses and my progressives many (many) times each day. For a time I was using my progressive glasses for computer work, but they caused severe neck and upper back problems that were cured once I began using my computer glasses again. I used to wear a pair of glasses around my neck... but my wife put a…