Our mission and core values at Nebraska Visual Integration Center are to provide 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
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.
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. CI impacts children in school as well as adults in their daily work.
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 held 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.
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 can often occur as a direct 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 a difficult time interpreting the visual information from the two eyes because differences in clarity or alignment, the brain begins to filter out and ignore one eye whereby amblyopia occurs.
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.
Sports / Athletic Performance
Optimizing Visual Skills
There are times when an athlete’s vision can be improved without wearing glasses. We use therapy to improve areas your eyes may have lacking in efficiency relevant to athletic performance. Therapy can improve your visual-motor reaction and timing so that your eyes will not only see clearly, but see faster and see more than most people’s.
Performance Lenses
Beyond Eyesight
Special Needs
Developmental Delays
Those with neurodevelopmental issues often have hypersensitive vision and are overwhelmed by visual input that their brains cannot interpret, leading to a mismatch between their eyes and body. This disintegration of sensory input from their eyes and body leads to difficulty in information processing which makes it a struggle to gather and derive appropriate meaning from the things one sees.
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.
Syntonics / Light Therapy
Syntonics, or photo/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, but effects certain retinal nerves connected to non-visual brain centers such as the hypothalamus and pineal gland. These centers influence all nervous system functioning including vision. Nebraska Visual Integration Center is proud to be one of the only offices in Nebraska to provide this service to our patients.