Is it Too Late?
Many people think that vision therapy is only for children. However, adults have as much need for this type of vision care as children. Vision Therapy is often more effective for adults because they are usually more motivated to improve their visual abilities, whereas children may not understand that they have a problem or how that problem may affect their interests or future.
Plenty of people have visual problems sustaining near-centered work, including reading, writing, and computer use. When people have trouble using both eyes together or can’t focus for great lengths of time, they do not simply grow out of these problems. Children with visual problems often become adults with visual problems.
How a Vision Problem Can Affect Your Life
Adults will figure out many ways to compensate for their visual problems so that they can continue with any strenuous visual work they need to do. Often, adults come home from work extremely tired when all they did was sit at a desk and do paperwork. Some people will feel as if they had just run a 10K race! Children, on the other hand, will tend to avoid tasks that are difficult or make them feel inadequate.
How to Improve Your Vision
A developmental optometrist can help to reduce the strain of near work as well as work with any other kinds of visual problems. The proper lenses along with vision therapy make a tremendous difference in an adult’s ability to function at work or sports, just as with children of school age.
Dr. Sue Barry
At 48 years old, neuroscientist Dr. Sue Barry, underwent vision therapy due to several visual difficulties from which she suffered. Dubbed “Stereo Sue” by neurologist Oliver Sacks in a New Yorker article by that name, Sue Barry has gone on to write her own book Fixing My Gaze which describes the astonishing experience of gaining 3D stereovision after a lifetime of seeing in only two dimensions. Intensive vision therapy created new neural connections, and with them, a new view of the world. Challenging conventional wisdom that the brain is programmed for life during a critical period in childhood, Barry offers a poignant and revelatory account of our capacity for change.
Watch Dr. Barrys’ TEDx talk to hear her story first hand: