WHAT WE DO

Experience

Our training and experience in Vision Therapy is what makes Nebraska Visual Integration Center unique. Our doctor and therapy team have had direct training under the best and most renowned optometrists providing Vision Therapy. Dr. Gates is one of only a few in all of Nebraska distinguished as a Board Certified Fellow with residency-training in Vision Development / Rehabilitation. Our team specializes in providing vision care that improves lives.

Dedication

Nebraska Visual Integration Center (NVIC) is 100% dedicated to providing specialty vision care and vision therapy to those suffering from functional visual issues that impact learning & classroom performance; children and adults with strabismus and amblyopia; those who have experienced concussion/brain injury and stroke; and those with inefficient visual skills and visual processing due to neurodevelopment delay. Our office does not provide routine eye exams and this allows us to focus all of our time and energy on providing the best Vision Therapy and Functional / Developmental vision care.

Commitment

At Nebraska Visual Integration Center we are committed to ensuring you are always familiar with and understand the specialty vision care you will receive with us. We realize you are making important health choices and we want that to be as easy and informative as possible.

Vision + Learning / Reading

It’s estimated 1 out of 5 children has a vision problem affecting their ability to learn. An individual’s visual system is directly connected to their brain, which processes everything they see in order to learn. An efficient visual system allows for efficient learning and living.  Visual problems can interfere with learning and reading even when a child has 20/20 eyesight.

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Convergence Insufficiency

Convergence Insufficiency (CI)  is a common eye-teaming problem in which the eyes have difficulty turning in to read and see during near work. Convergence Insufficiency is the #1 visual issue to cause eyestrain, blurry vision, double vision (diplopia), and/or headaches. Convergence Insufficiency impacts children in school as well as adults in their daily work.

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Strabismus

Eye Turn / Crossed Eye

Strabismus is a visual condition where the two eyes point in different directions. An eye can turn in (esotropia), out (exotropia), up (hypertropia), or down (hypotropia). The eye turn may be constant or just at certain times. It’s also very common to notice an eye turn with fatigue or visually-demanding tasks. A common misconception is that strabismus is caused by a “weak” eye muscle when that is almost never the case. Quite simply, the brain controls the eyes, and the brain did not acquire the bilateral coordination to efficiently use the two eyes together as a team.

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Amblyopia

Lazy Eye

Amblyopia is a brain-based visual condition where one eye displays poor visual functioning due to reduced neurovisual development. This occurs even with use of glasses or contact lenses. The amblyopic eye not only has poorer sight/clarity, it also has reduced performance in a number of visual processing skills.

Amblyopia occurs as a result of Strabismus (eye turn / crossed eyes) or differences in clarity between the two eyes (due to farsightedness, nearsightedness or astigmatism). When the brain has difficulty interpreting visual information from the two eyes in a balanced and equal way due to differences in clarity or eye alignment, the brain begins to filter out and ignore one eye which leads to amblyopia.

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Brain Injury / Concussion & Stroke

Visual deficits are extremely common after concussion / brain injury and stroke. Research shows nearly 80% of brain injury patients suffer from vision problems that affect daily living. This occurs because the visual system is directly connected to many other sensory systems to allow for the proper integration of information processing that contribute to normal daily activities.

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Sports / Athletic Performance

Optimizing Visual Skills

There are times when an athlete’s vision can be improved beyond wearing glasses. Vision Therapy for sports training can improve areas in visual functioning that may be lacking in efficiency relevant to overall athletic performance. Therapy can improve peripheral awareness, depth perception, visual-motor reaction and timing so that the visual system will not only see clearly, but see faster and see more than most.

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Performance Lenses

Beyond Eyesight

Performance lenses are specially designed glasses that allow the focusing and teaming of the eyes to work more efficiently. These glasses are not prescribed to address sight issues, but rather work by affecting overall neurovisual functioning. These lenses can have a tremendous impact on classroom performance for children, but more commonly play a vital role in the recovering of those who have suffered brain injury/concussion. 
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Special Needs

Developmental Delays

Those with neurodevelopmental issues often have hypersensitive visual systems and are overwhelmed by visual input resulting in difficulty of the brain in interpreting sensory information. This leads to a mismatch between the eyes and body and a breakdown of sensory-motor integration. This disintegration of sensory input from the eyes and body leads to difficulty in information processing which makes it a struggle to gather and derive appropriate meaning from what one sees.

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Retained Motor Reflexes

Retained (primitive) motor reflexes are involuntary movement patterns directed by the brainstem, meaning they are not under conscious control. They emerge in-utero and during the early weeks/months of life play an essential role in infant survival and development.

These reflexes have a limited life span and lay the foundation for more precise movement. Eye movements are considered the most precise and neurologically demanding motor skills initiated by the brain. When earlier general body movement patterns do not develop appropriately, visual skills tend to be poorly controlled and loosely integrated as they are built upon a faulty foundation.

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Syntonics / Light Therapy

Syntonics, or light therapy, may be used as a supplement to office-based therapy / rehabilitation. Although it may sound like an unorthodox method for treating visual conditions, syntonics is firmly grounded in neuroscience. Through the application of selected light through the eyes, syntonics treats and improves vision problems that affect daily functioning. When light enters the eyes it doesn’t only serve vision to allow us to see images, but effects certain brain centers that influence nervous system functioning like attention, circadian rhythm (sleep/wake cycle) and more. Nebraska Visual Integration Center is proud to be one of the only offices in Nebraska to provide this service to our patients.

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