Our Functional Optometric Approach:

What does a functional optometric approach mean?

• Utilizing a functional optometric approach means looking at vision beyond just eyesight clarity or “20/20 vision”.
• It focuses on how the eyes and brain work together to support daily activities like reading, learning, playing sports, and moving around safely.
• This approach pays attention to how well the visual system:
  • Attends and tracks stationary and moving objects;Uses both eyes coordinately together;
  • Understands what is seen;
  • Integrates visual information with the body’s other sensory (e.g. vestibular, touch, hearing) and motor systems (e.g. eye-hand, posture).
• It’s ensuring that the whole “vision” team (ie. the eyes and brain) are working together smoothly, so theindividual can effectively perform with ability, ease, and comfort.

How do we achieve this?

We start with an extensive case history:

• We believe that a thorough case history is essential in identifying and understanding our patient’s struggles, not only to identify what visual problems are present, but also to understand their impairments and challenges.
• No two brain injuries are the same–every brain is different, and therefore every brain injury is also different. 
• It helps to understand our patient’s challenges in order to treat our patients effectively.

Continue with a very comprehensive testing battery:

• Our extremely thorough testing protocol typically includes assessment of:
  • Ocular alignment (in multiple gazes)
  • Eye movement ability (fixation, pursuits and saccades)
  • Fusion ability and stereopsis (depth perception)
  • Convergence and divergence skills
  • Refraction (objective and subjective)
  • Accommodation (amplitudes and facility)
  • Egocentric spatial localization (subjective perception of horizontal and vertical visual midline)
  • Neurological testing (e.g. pupils, confrontation visual fields, light sensitivity)
  • Static balance and yoked prism assessment 
  • Ocular health evaluation.
• We test numerous visual skills in several different ways to gain additional and valuable insight into skill consistency, stamina, effort, approach strategy, and response to stress and fatigue.
• Carefully observing how a patient completes a task (i.e. not only whether a patient gets the correct answer or not) helps to uncover compensatory strategies masking underlying “hidden” dysfunctions. This additional understanding of a patient’s underlying compensatory behaviour yields powerful insight in how to improve our patient’s operation strategies.
• We attempt to differentiate visual dysfunctions from vestibular dysfunctions, and manage accordingly.   

And utilize a three-prong therapeutic approach:

1. Prioritize visual-vestibular integration therapy (e.g. OpticNeuro Lens Therapy) before implementing traditional oculomotor visual or vestibular therapy.
2. Use a variety of refractive aids and techniques to minimize the neurological demand of the visual system, reduce symptoms, and promote neuroplasticity.
3. Customize a multi-faceted Optometric Vision Rehabilitative Therapy (OVRT) protocol based upon individual patient needs.