TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/021389/02138900.058

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.8 KB | 77 lines

                                                                                HEALTH, Page 86

Workouts for the Eyes


Therapies to improve visual performance get mixed reviews


    With their monotonous rows of eyeglass frames, optometrists'
offices used to be about as exciting as barbershops. These days,
though, many eyeware outlets look like a cross between Romper
Room and a video arcade. Colorful blocks, spinning charts,
precarious balance beams and computerized gizmos with flashing
lights all vie for the eye's attention. The games and gadgetry
are the tools of "vision therapy," an increasingly popular but
controversial program that aims at making the eye as quick as
the hand through exercise and training.

    Although medical experts are skeptical about the
effectiveness of vision therapy, hundreds of thousands of
Americans have spent big money in the hope of sharpening their
sight. A six-month program of weekly 45-minute sessions can
cost as much as $3,000. Believers range from anxious parents who
want to better their youngsters' academic performance to
pro-baseball players like Yankee slugger Don Mattingly who
thinks vision exercises help him keep his eye on the ball. Joe
Fugaro of East Brunswick, N.J., credits the treatment with
improving his trapshooting. "You need to keep your eyes tuned
up," he says.

    Spotting a lucrative way to diversify, about half the
nation's 24,500 optometrists -- specialists who examine eyes
and prescribe corrective lenses -- offer some form of
eye-improvement therapy, also called vision training. The
premise is simple: while eyesight is largely determined by
genetics, seeing is an acquired skill, developed through
practice, much like walking or swimming. Says Richard Kavner, a
New York City optometrist: "The goal is to improve faulty
connections between the brain and eye muscle." Common exercises
include walking on a balance beam while reading a chart,
completing connect-the-dot pictures and touching points in
patterns that are flashed rapidly on a screen. Such training is
designed to enhance the eye's focusing speed, depth perception
and peripheral vision.

    The therapy has reputedly helped children, including those
with learning disabilities, improve their reading skills
because it trains the eyes to work together and scan the printed
page quickly. Anita Seibert of Northridge, Calif., says the
training helped her sons Matthew, 10, and Brandon, 7, both of
whom had been having trouble reading and concentrating. "We
tried everything, ophthalmologists, counselors," she says. After
six months of therapy, the boys started "getting A's," Seibert
reports.

    But ophthalmologists -- medical doctors who specialize in
eye care -- remain wary of vision therapy. "There's a conceptual
fogginess to the whole thing," declares ophthalmologist George
Beauchamp of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, "and the
treatments are fuzzy and ill-defined." Although optometrists
point to hundreds of research reports that they say validate the
training, most ophthalmologists dismiss the studies as
anecdotal. "Bring me one study controlled for bias on the part
of the practitioner and the person," says Dr. Paul Vinger of
Harvard University, a vision consultant to the U.S. Olympic
Committee. "Prove it, then promote it."

    Medical doctors are particularly concerned about the claims
made about children with learning difficulties. They say much of
the improvement can be attributed to the focused attention of
the family and the optometrist. Observes Tom Fogarty, spokesman
for the Association for Children and Adults with Learning
Disabilities: "Sometimes just paying attention to a kid and
making him feel good does something for him." Until convincing
evidence is put forth, say medical experts, the value of vision
therapy is strictly in the eye of the beholder.