Any thing I can do to help with Vision Therapy at home?

[Samiam]

DS11 was diagnosed with convergence issues a few months ago.  He's been going to therapy once a week since then, but our budget is just done, done, DONE....just can not squeeze anymore blood out of it....not if we want to have electricity and running water, and a wee bit of food on the table...just can't do it.  Honestly, we were using the funds in our FSA, so it didn't directly affect our budget, and those funds are now used up, and now it WILL affect our budget to continue therapy.

 

I was only able to be in the room once during his therapy, and that was during the initial testing.  I saw the types of things he had to do, but most of it was looking through binocular type lenses at cards.   

 

Since then, he's told me some things he's done, like play board games where he has to move things (I'm thinking like Rush Hour)...build blocks to match a card, play games on the computer.

 

Has anyone tried to replicate Vision Therapy at home?  I know it wouldnt' be as great as doing it the office, but perhaps something is better than nothing, until our budget allows us to get him back in for therapy.

[Pen]

Our vision therapist gave exercises to do at home. I suggest you ask yours to do this for you.

[geodob]

Here's a link to a page that explains some home exercises;

http://www.wwl.nhs.uk/Library/All_New_PI_Docs/Audio_Leaflets/Opthalmology/Home_Excercises/Orth013_Exercise_for_improving_Convergence_Insufficiency.pdf

 

 

 

[Tiramisu]

You should have really been doing regular exercises at home while going to therapy once a week. That's what the studies have shown of what works. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something from your post. ??

 

We had to do homework five days a week. And if all the homework was not done for a certain week, that week could be considered as not having been done at all in terms of moving through the steps and then the session might have to be extended.  

 

We had an OT recommend a younger dd doing word finds everyday and playing catch. I'm not ready to do VT with her. It's so expensive and I anticipate not a lot of compliance and a lot of grief. 

 

It's not therapy, but I'd consider doing things aloud and on a big white board to reduce the stress on the eyes and any resulting negative behaviors, as well as a protect against the development of bad associations with learning.

[NotSoObvious]

Yeah, we had exercises at home twice a day and therapy two times a week.

 

If you don't have home exercises already, I'd seriously question the effectiveness of your DO.

[PeterPan]

Like the others, I'll ask what you were doing for homework?  If you had told them upfront, I would have suggested going to less frequent therapy sessions with a lot more homework.  There's some stuff that is proprietary and hard to accomplish at home, but there's a LOT you could do at home if they showed you how.  Our place had you buy a whole therapy notebook, so it was easy for them to assign large amounts of homework and flex.  And they would let you borrow or buy the flippers you need to do the tasks. They're maybe $15 each.

 

 

[clemota]

We had homework 5 days a week - DD was given 1 day a week off.  Now that we are done, the OD still recommended "checking in" with the computer program we were using about once every two weeks, just to make sure she was maintaining, plus having her "notice" what her eyes were doing, so she could remember how to focus correctly as needed.  I plan on making a "beads on a string" to use at home, just to help with that.

 

If you were doing homework between sessions, I'd say keep doing some of those.

 

But I'd also suggest that if you could squeeze in one more session with the therapist (maybe ask for a consult rather than a VT appointment, so it would be billed for less?) and explain your situation.  I would think that any good VT would give you activities to work on at home in the hopes of continuing any progress your DS has made, even if you can't afford the sessions themselves any more. 

[Rod Everson]

Samiam, it would be helpful if you'd chime in here and confirm whether or not any homework was assigned, so we don't have to speculate. I agree with the others though, that if your son only had VT once a week, and only in the office, that you should consider a different therapy department if and when you get the resources to continue his therapy. 

 

I realize that in some cases parents have a hard time working with their own children and in those cases they'll often pay more to have all therapy done professionally, but when that is the case sessions usually occur several times a week. 

 

The problem with taking up home exercises without professional guidance is that you first have to know whether your son's convergence issue was that he was too "loose" or too "tight". In his diagnosis, "loose" would be described as exophoric, and "tight" would be described as "esophoric" I believe. (I'm not an OD, but am reasonably familiar with VT.) If you do the wrong set of exercises you could be tightening a visual system that's already too tight, and vice versa. 

 

I'd talk to the VT and see if you could get some guidance, and two or three exercises that you could do at home. If you can't get that basic information, I'd definitely consider going to a different OD if you take up therapy later. Your present therapist might be great at getting results, but there are more efficient (less expensive and faster) ways to go about it, usually with home exercises interspersed with therapy visits.

[PeterPan]

If the kid doesn't understand his own convergence after months of therapy, she has bigger problems than whether she knows the right terms.

[geodob]

Rod, exophoria and esophoria is something very different.

With Exophoria, the eyes turn outwards.

Esophoria, they turn inwards.

 

So that when the eyes are focused on a point, they are unable to rest at the point. Where they will either turn in or out.

While this effects binocular vision, it is very different from convergence insufficiency.