Visual training: current status in ophthalmology.

PURPOSE: To inform ophthalmologists of the current status of visual training. DESIGN: Personal perspective. METHOD: A perspective and analysis of current practices that include a review of the literature and personal experiences of the author. RESULTS: Visual training of some sort has been used for centuries. In the first half of the twentieth century, in cooperation with ophthalmologists, orthoptists introduced a wide variety of training techniques that were designed primarily to improve binocular function. In the second half of the twentieth century, visual training activities were taken up by optometrists and paramedical personnel to treat conditions that ranged from uncomfortable vision to poor reading or academic performance. Other visual training has been aimed at the elimination of a wide variety of systemic symptoms and for the specific improvement of sight and even for the improvement of athletic performance. At present, ophthalmologists and orthoptists use visual training to a very limited degree. Most visual training is now done by optometrists and others who say it works. Based on an assessment of claims and a study of published data, the consensus of ophthalmologists regarding visual training is that, except for near point of convergence exercises, visual training lacks documented evidence of effectiveness. CONCLUSION: Although visual training has been used for several centuries, it plays a minor and actually decreasing role in eye therapy used by the ophthalmologist. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, most visual training is carried out by non-ophthalmologists and is neither practiced nor endorsed in its broadest sense by ophthalmology.

La ortóptica: de la enfermedad hacia la salud / Orthoptics: from disease to health

La ortóptica ha vivido cambios en los últimos 30 años y el desempeño de la Ortoptista se ha modificado. El instrumental que se maneja, la relación laboral entre distintos profesionales, la inserción de ellos en el Hospital Público, en la actividad privada y en la salud global de la población, la accesibilidad de la gente a diferentes tratamientos y la elevación de los costos de atención médica, han justificado replanteos en la políticas de salud. La OMS y el Fondo Internacional de las NU de ayuda para la infancia, han lanzado la meta Salud para todos en el año 2000 dentro de la política de Atención Primaria de la Salud (APS), para hacer accesible "la asistencia sanitaria esencial con métodos y técnicas prácticas, de base científica, aceptación social, al alcance de todos los individuos, con su participación y a un costo tolerable". Por ello, hoy la Ortoptista, Tecnóloga Médica o Técnica de Oftalmología deberá incorporar a los exámenes que permitan conocer el estado de la visión binocular y a los medios terapéuticos para restablecerla, la búsqueda en la población de los individuos aún asintomáticos y/o sanos, para una promoción de la visión binocular y la obtención de mejor visión para una mejor Calidad de Vida

Visual therapy results for convergence insufficiency: a literature review.

This paper is a review of the literature relative to treatment results for convergence insufficiency utilizing vision therapy training procedures. Vision therapy is shown to improve the nearpoint of convergence and fusional convergence and to ameliorate associated symptoms. The overall cure rate is 72%. Furthermore, the training results appear to persist for at least 2 years if the patients are initially cured and are independent of age until the late presbyopic years. Also, recent studies indicate the type of training procedures which yield the most effective training results.