Warsaw Family and Pediatric Eyecare   Drs. Tabitha Temple and Scott Caughell

    Dr. Caughell is one of only a few fellowship trained eye doctors in pediatrics, binocular vision, and vision therapy in the state.  These problems are very common and can significantly affect you or your child's life. 

    It makes sense that many parents and adults are skeptical about how much vision therapy can help their children.  There are a lot of good scientific and clinical studies that prove the effectiveness of vision therapy and orthoptics.

    Binocular (using the 2 eyes together) vision problems are very common.  Studies suggest that over 1 in 20 children have a significant focusing or eye muscle problem that can greatly affect their ability to focus and learn, let alone cause headaches.  It is also important to understand that reading an eye chart will not find these problems.

    The fact that so many children and adults needlessly struggle with these conditions is a main reason that Dr. Caughell is so passionate about educating others about them.

Read the story below and click on these links for more information: (links will take you away from this site)

http://www.visiontherapy.org/

http://www.visiontherapystories.org/

You Tube Video on binocular vision problem by NIH:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAgyojExdHI

** Skeptical about vision therapy?  I recommend reading a new book by Sue Barry (a neuroscientist who had vision therapy) entitled Fixing my Gaze.  It is endorsed by 2 Noble Prize winners.  Our office has loaner copies available or it is available at Amazon.com. 

* Here is an informative article published in the Dear Abby Column about a case followed by a new release from the Mayo Clinic:

                        DAUGHTER'S SCHOOL WOES ARE CAUSED BY DISORDER OF SIGHT

DEAR ABBY: Please help me get the word out about a common condition that severely affects children's ability to succeed in school because it inhibits reading, spelling and concentration.

My daughter, who was obviously bright, tested at first-grade reading level in fifth grade. She had undergone all the school testing for learning disabilities, plus two days of testing at a respected university hospital. None of these tests or specialists revealed what could be wrong with her.

My child's self-esteem suffered. Her confidence faltered; she began acting out in school. At home she was a great kid, until it came time for schoolwork. Then the battles began. She thought she was dumb. When studying, she could read for only a very short time. She often begged me to read things to her. When working on spelling and assigned to rewrite the words she missed five times, she often recopied them wrong. We thought she just wasn't trying.

After much research on the Internet, I came across a disorder called "convergence insufficiency disorder." This visual condition is the leading cause of eyestrain. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to have her tested at the Mayo Clinic, where her condition was confirmed, and she was successfully treated with vision therapy.

It was as though a miracle had occurred. After six months of treatment, my daughter is almost at her age-appropriate reading level. Her comprehension and retention have markedly increased, and her self-esteem and attitude about reading are much better.

Children with this condition will not benefit from tutoring, special education or extra help from teachers until the condition is diagnosed and treated. My child had 20/20 vision and still had this disorder. It's not routinely checked with eye exams, and schools don't test for it.

I suspect that many children out there are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed and going untreated. The treatment for convergence insufficiency disorder is noninvasive, effective, and much of it can be done at home. Please help me get the word out so other families won't have to go through what we experienced. -- ANGIE W. IN MINNESOTA

DEAR ANGIE: I am pleased to help you get the word out to other families whose children are struggling to learn. After reading your letter, I contacted my experts at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and was informed that this problem, where the eyes drift too much inward (or outward) in attempting to focus, can also be present in adults.

The symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision, sleepiness and trouble retaining information when reading. Other symptoms associated with convergence insufficiency include a "pulling" sensation around the eyes, the rubbing or closing of one eye when reading, words seeming to "jump" or "float" across the page, needing to reread the same line of words, frequent loss of place, general inability to concentrate and short attention span.

The good news is: Vision exercises can fix the problem in most cases, some done at home and some performed in-office with a vision therapist. Prism glasses are another option; however, they are more often prescribed for adults with this disorder than for children.

Best Treatment Determined for Childhood Eye Problem

Description
Mayo Clinic researchers, as part of a nine-site study, helped discover the best of three currently-used treatments for convergence insufficiency in children. Convergence refers to the natural ability of the eyes to focus and align while viewing objects up close. Children with convergence insufficiency tend to have blurred or double vision or headaches and corresponding issues in reading and concentrating, which ultimately impact learning.

Newswise ­ Mayo Clinic researchers, as part of a nine-site study, helped discover the best of three currently-used treatments for convergence insufficiency in children. Convergence refers to the natural ability of the eyes to focus and align while viewing objects up close. Children with convergence insufficiency tend to have blurred or double vision or headaches and corresponding issues in reading and concentrating, which ultimately impact learning. The findings, published today in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology (http://archopht.ama-assn.org/ ), show children improve faster with structured therapy sessions in a doctor’s office, with reinforcement eye exercises at home.

“This is good news for children and parents experiencing this fairly common condition,” says Brian Mohney, M.D., Mayo Clinic ophthalmologist and lead investigator for Mayo in the study. “Three different approaches were being used across the country and no one knew for certain which worked best. Now that’s settled. And only 12 weeks of treatment were necessary to demonstrate improvement.”

How they did it.

The researchers followed 221 children nationally, ages 9 to 17, divided into four study groups, two of which received only home-based therapies. One group did simple daily exercises for 15 minutes, trying to focus on a moving pencil. A second home-based group performed a shorter version of the pencil exercise and a series of computer-based exercises using special software. A third group did an hour of supervised therapy in a clinical office each week along with 15 minutes of prescribed exercises at home five days a week. The fourth group, the placebo or control group, did office and home exercises designed to look like real therapy but that had no effect. Follow-up exams were held after the fourth and eighth weeks and at the end of the 12-week study.

Significance of the findings

Children in all three treatment groups experienced improvement, though it’s not clear from the research whether any improvement in the home groups was due to a placebo effect. About 75 percent of the children who had weekly office-based therapy coupled with 15 minutes of at-home exercise five days a week experienced either normalization (full correction) of their vision in 12 weeks or saw marked improvements, compared to roughly 40 percent in the two home treatment groups. Researchers say that the lower cost of home therapy may be a factor in its popularity, but they point to the high percentage of normalized vision in the office-based sample after 12 weeks as an indicator of quality outcome in the shortest period of time.

The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, sponsored the study. Others involved in the research from Mayo Clinic were Jonathan Holmes, M.D.; Melissa Rice, O.D.; Virginia Karlsson; Becky Nielsen; Jan Sease; and Tracee Shevlin.