Vision therapy

Vision therapy (VT), or behavioral optometry, is an umbrella term for alternative medicine treatments using eye exercises, based around the scientific evidences that vision problems are the true underlying cause of learning difficulties, particularly in children. Vision therapy has not been shown to be effective according to modern evidence-based medicine. Most claimsfor example that the therapy can address neurological, educational, and spatial difficultieslack supporting evidence. Neither the American Academy of Pediatrics nor the American Academy of Ophthalmology support the use of vision therapy. Vision therapy is based on the proposition that many learning disabilities in children are based on vision problems, and that these can be cured by performing eye exercises. . Vision therapy is a broad concept that encompasses a wide range of treatment types. These include those aimed at convergence insufficiency – where it is often termed "vergence therapy" or "orthoptic therapy" – and at a variety of neurological, educational and spatial difficulties. There is no good evidence that it is of any benefit in treating learning disabilities, reading, dyslexia, or ADHD, although there is some evidence that vision therapy may help treat convergence insufficiency in healthy people. the consensus among ophthalmologists, orthoptists and pediatricians is that non-strabismic visual therapy lacks documented evidence of effectiveness. A review in 2000 concluded that there were insufficient controlled studies of the approach. A 2008 review of the literature also noted that there were insufficient controlled studies, and concluded that the approaches "are not evidence-based, and thus cannot be advocated." There exist a few different broad classifications of vision treatment philosophies, which have been traditionally divided between optometrists, ophthalmologists, and practitioners of alternative medicine. Orthoptic vision therapy, also known as orthoptics, is a field pertaining to the evaluation and treatment of patients with disorders of the visual system with an emphasis on binocular vision and eye movements.