COVD Conference

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Thank you to all of our wonderful patients for your scheduling flexibility while our staff was away at the COVD annual conference. We can’t wait to share with our patients all of the fascinating things we learned and implement some cool new techniques and activities in our VT office! The first two days consisted of in-depth applied concepts courses that included useful and insightful information about the management and care of patients with acquired brain injuries and concussions, new advances and treatment options for strabismus and amblyopia, and a Vision Therapy 201 course where we learned how to modify techniques and activities for special population patients and kick start the road to certification.
For the remainder of the week, we attended many general education courses. Our favorite course talked about the importance of balance and incorporating vestibular and motor strategies in vision therapy. Balance and breathing are very important factors to consider in vision therapy as they contribute to our sense of spatial orientation. Our vestibular system (sense of balance) directly affects head position, eye-hand coordination, eye control, attention, and being secure with movement.
Another general education course that we took helped us gain a deeper understanding of central and peripheral vision (side-vision). Think of how much of our visual field is central (what you see when reading, about the size of a quarter) versus our peripheral vision, which is everything else! When we emphasize our entire visual field, we have more success in vision therapy. At the end of a busy and informative week, we had the opportunity to explore St. Louis together. We went to the City Museum which was an eclectic mixture of a children’s (and adult) playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects from reclaimed building materials. It was such blast!