FAQ's
| Question: | Do we need to be reviewed? |
| Answer: | Yes. Assuming everything is under control all children need to be reviewed yearly, as their visual systems are very fragile and vulnerable to breakdown. Also of course the demand on their eyes for near concentration is increasing day by day until they finish studying. Adult visual systems are more set in their ways, so two to three yearly reviews are adequate. |
| Question: | Are the improvements maintained? |
| Answer: | Depends on the particular vision skills. With perceptual skills the skills that are learnt are never lost (like learning to ride the bike – once mastered – always there) and continue to develop with normal development and learning in life. However the functional skills are different all together. The visual system needs to be maintained as the child is developing because as stresses are put on the eyes, they can regress and they might need help again. If we can maintain an efficient system without strain then they won’t need them when they’re older – until they reach 45 and then join every other human being who loses their focus with age. |
| Question: | Will my child notice anything? |
| Answer: | Generally it is the parent who will observe the improvements. You’ll see increased attention span, ability to self-correct, fewer mistakes, just generally more attention to detail and recognition of that detail. The child will simply notice it is “easier”. Only about 25% of the kids will be already suffering with difficulty seeing the words on the board or in the book or having eyestrain headaches/sore eyes or double vision. Now these children will notice specifically all those symptoms have disappeared. Can you imagine how this makes them feel? It’s like a whole new world is opened to them. |
| Question: | How long does it take for improvements? |
| Answer: | Once diligent vision training is commenced improvements are usually noticed within the first two to three weeks, gradually increasing until the end of the block of training. If several blocks of training are required then the specific areas which that block is addressing are the ones which improve, with the remaining difficulties continuing to present until they are trained. |
| Question: | Will it all be claimable under my Health Fund? |
| Answer: | Your health fund will allow you to claim a proportion of the glasses or contact lenses. Medicare will rebate you for part of the consultations. |
| Question: | Why should we get our spectacles from you? |
| Answer: | There is a plethora of choices out there in both frame and lens design choices. The quality (optical distortions, clarity, durability, strength) is greatly variable. We apply our strict quality control to all products and if a particular product does not meet those specifications we stop supplying it. We never source our products on price and profit margins. We have been known to send back whole ranges of frames and refuse to stock them ever again. We guarantee you the finest quality spectacles on the market today. |
| Question: | Do we test adults? |
| Answer: | Yes, We treat adult’s visual systems the same as kids. That is, with a great emphasis on visual efficiency, comfort and performance. Traditionally what happens is after we fix the kids problems the parents usually realise they have components of those same difficulties or want the most efficient lens design choice for their performance needs. In the same way that we set a standard for ourselves in diagnosing and solving at the highest levels we also set the same standard with the products we source for your spectacles. |
| Question: | Do many people have reduced or poor vision skills? |
| Answer: | Yes, with our environment continually changing with technology and computers reduced vision skills affect over one million children in Australia. |
| Question: | How much time do we have to spend on Vision Training? |
| Answer: | Remember you are trying to change pre learned habits or skills never learnt. The same as if you wanted to be good at soccer, you would expose your brain to the learning of those skills with a soccer ball daily and if you really wanted to improve enormously, then it should be done more frequently. It is the same with vision training. Generally if doing once per day expect to spend 20 minutes, but it is best to spend 2-3 minutes per activity several times a day if you can.
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| Question: | What is vision training? |
| Answer: | Your current level of visual competency and your diagnosis, will determine which vision training program we would use. The training programs have been developed by clinical Professors of Optometry and Behavioural Optoms both in America and here in Australia and are the result of extensive research. Vision training is individually prescribed computer based and/or free space training depending on requirements and is done at home or in the office, combined with weekly or monthly consultations and monitoring by Gary to assist you with the program. |
| Question: | Do we always prescribe glasses? |
| Answer: | No, not always, but most of the children who come here are referred here from someone who’s already picked up some sort of problem, so a lot of the kids who come here will go away with some sort of enhancement reading glasses – training or otherwise. Additionally, because we’re looking at overall visual efficiency and performance and not just clarity of sight, we’re going to pick up a lot more things that can be helped along the way. We prescribe corrective lenses as well as training lenses, preventative lenses, performance enhancement lenses and not just the traditional optical compensatory lenses. In fact we will prescribe training lenses at a rate greater than 10 times optical compensation lenses. We will also prescribe a lot more glasses than anyone else for the purpose of preventing eyestrain adaptations getting any worse. |
| Question: | Do we need a referral? |
| Answer: | No. Even though greater than 70% of our patients are referred in, a referral is not required. Any member of the family is able to see us “off the street’’. |
| Question: | Are my glasses going to make my eyes lazy or worse? |
| Answer: | Glasses that are prescribed for corrective measures – like optical errors such as short sightedness, long sightedness and astigmatism can make you more dependent on them. But glasses that we’re prescribing for training purposes recalibrate your eyes and train your eyes, so thateventually you won’t need them. You’ll most likely get worse if your eyes are under strain without your reading glasses, which often happens when kids become lax at wearing them because the initial problems seem to be gone or because they don’t notice any differences when wearing them (there may be no effect on the clarity of sight). |
| Question: | What are some of the signs or symptoms of reduced vision skills? |
| Answer: | Slow reading speed, skipping words or lines, lazy eye, poor concentration, not achieving potential at work or at school, reduced memory with words, tracking issues, guessing when reading, blinking, squinting, sore eyes, rubbing eyes, poor attention span, playing up in school, not wanting to read or do homework. |
| Question: | What do we do at Eyes InDesign? |
| Answer: | At Eyes In Design we believe in “SMART VISION”. We test sight like a normal optometrist does – with normal optometric tests (health of the eyes, sight and optical error). But we also look into vision skills, which is different to sight. These skills affect how we learn at school and perform with studying or on the computer or bookwork. The vision of what you see is the interpretation that goes back to the brain. Even in adults, this means much improved comfort and efficiency when doing visual tasks. We also look at you or your child’s specific needs and individualise treatment to improve vision skills, reading fluency, reading speed, comprehension, concentration, eye strain, visual processing and loss of concentration. This is either done through prescribing glasses or through vision training or both. With adults this “smart vision” philosophy extends to advanced eye health monitoring with digital retinal imaging (which is routinely performed on all our patients over 40 yrs). |
| Question: | What is a Behavioural Optometry? |
| Answer: | “Behavioural Optometry is an expanded area of optometric practice. A Behavioural Optometrist has a holistic approach in the treatment of vision and vision information processing problems. A behavioural optometrist believes that your visual status and the way that you interpret what you see, does not depend solely on the clarity of your eyesight. Consideration must be given to all your visual, visual motor and visual perceptual skills. In this way your behavioural optometrist will not only consider the remediation of any eyesight difficulties but also the benefits of prevention, protection and enhancement of your visual system in order to improve all aspects of your visual performance.”(Source: www.acbo.org.au)
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