TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/021389/02138900.058

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 4KB | 68 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.