Neuro-Cognitive Optometrics in Oradell

At Riverdell Family Vision Care, we are pleased to practice Neuro Cognitive (Behavioral) Optometry. Our model of vision care is a combination of traditional medical eye care which determines the presence of eye disease and significant need for glasses, functional vision care which seeks to evaluate patient’s abilities to team their eyes and coordinate their focus to provide comfortable and efficient vision,

and Neuro Cognitive care which assesses the patient’s ability to convert light energy reaching the eye into meaningful information to direct action and produce learning.

Did you know that:

• Estimates are that as much as 80 to 90% of all information we take in comes through our eyes
• At least 70 % of the brain has connections to visual information
• There are two parallel Visual Systems that the information from our eyes is linked to:

1. The Focal System is our “what system” and is linked to memory and prior experiences to tell us what we are looking at.
2. The Ambient System is our “where system” and processes where we are in space and where objects are in space relative to our eyes and body. These coordinates guide our focal system.

• This dual system must work well in tandem to allow us to function appropriately

Consider as simple an act as pouring a glass of milk: Our ambient vision must direct our hands through space to position our focal system to avoid a spill

Consider an act as complicated as reading: Our ambient vision must direct our eyes in time and space to properly move across the page and allow our focal system to process the words and comprehend well.

Did you know that:

• “25% of students in grades K through 6 have visual problems that are serious enough to impede learning.”

Many of these vision problems are often undetected, missed by typical vision screening and even vision.

• “When vision problems go undetected, children almost invariably have trouble reading and doing their schoolwork. They often display fatigue, fidgeting, and frustrations in the classroom; traits that can lead to a misdiagnosis of dyslexia or other learning disabilities.” American Optometric Association
• “It is estimated that 80% of children with a learning disability have an undiagnosed vision problem.”
• Learning related vision problems are occasionally due to the need for glasses and every child needs to be checked for this need. Thankfully, eye disease is rare in children but each child must be checked for this as well. At Riverdell Family Vision Care we evaluate children thoroughly in these areas

BUT our evaluation concentrates on the areas much more likely to be problematic with these children which include functional problems such as Convergence Insufficiency, the most common cause of eye teaming issues and eye movement and perceptual problems which create difficulty in academic skills such as reading and writing as well as clumsiness or poor performance in sports. Near point glasses are often helpful when problems such as these arise but more commonly, the treatment of choice is vision therapy.

Vision therapy is a sequence of procedures customized to a given patient and designed to remediate functional and/or developmental problems. Our brains are responsible for creating our visual experiences based upon the input from our eyes. Connections within our brains are created and refined throughout the early years of life and it is during these times that change is more easily obtained, BUT, the old thinking that after the age of 7 or 8 change was not possible has been disproven. Our brains remain alterable throughout life.

The key to Vision Therapy is setting up situations that support the change required to overcome any of these problems. Vision therapy programs consist of in- office and home exercises. We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with many children and adults with problems affecting them severely in school and/or at work and have had tremendous success in remediating these concerns (see testimonial section).