What’s Behavioral Optometry?

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Behavioral optometry uses holistic approaches to improve vision, including corrective lenses, visual therapy, and lifestyle changes. It aims to retrain the eyes to process visual information and improve skills such as focusing, eye movements, and alignment. This alternative medicine may also help children with learning, spelling, reading, and coordination problems.

Behavioral optometry is a form of alternative medicine that takes holistic approaches to improve vision problems. Patients are treated with corrective lenses that help reduce the strain on their eyes and training to help them see better at a distance. Visual therapy is also used by behavioral optometrists to encourage patients to learn new skills, such as sports activities that strengthen the eyes’ ability to focus, process visual information, and align properly.

The treatment process is usually started by testing patients on a variety of eye abilities. The tests help determine patients’ performance in tasks such as reading letters on a chart, and analyze areas such as hand-eye coordination and color perception. Corrective lenses are a component of behavioral optometry that could be used to treat vision problems. When prescribed, these lenses are designed to work differently from traditional glasses. The purpose of corrective lenses is to relieve stress from activities that cause the eyes to focus on close-up elements, such as computer work or reading.

Behavioral optometrists also work to retrain the eyes to process visual information from a distance. Lenses prescribed to patients treated through behavioral optometry often include small prisms that could help improve their vision patterns. These prisms force the brain to make the eyes work together, especially if they are prone to imbalances such as going up, down or out when in use.

Vision therapy is another element of behavioral optometry and includes exercises that include relaxation techniques for the eyes. This therapeutic process also aims to help the eyes relearn lost skills by making improvements that help the patient’s brain control its focusing skills, eye movements, visual information processing, and eye alignment. Vision therapy does not focus solely on exercising the eyes, because this can cause eye muscles to strain. Instead, behavioral optometrists teach patients to learn a new skill, such as juggling or playing with a ball, and how to practice relaxation techniques.

This form of alternative medicine could also include lifestyle changes that can be used to improve vision. These alterations include making changes to a patient’s diet, monitoring and improving sleep patterns, and managing stress. Some behavioral optometry experts suggest that this particular form of alternative medicine may also help treat problems children have in the areas of learning, spelling, reading and coordination. These experts also highlight this treatment as a solution to attention and hyperactivity problems.




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