Practice Profile Thomas R. Doud, OD Hartland Eye Care & Visual Learning Center, Hartland, Mich.
EYE High Rate of Functional Vision Problems Seen at Mobile Clinic Steph Kirschbaum, OD, spends a few days each year providing free eye exams and glasses for elementary school students in Sacramento, CA. In a recent pilot program, 15 of the students also had a RightEye Reading test to evaluate their eye tracking. The majority of the students had tracking issues, including two with severe problems. Dr. Kirschbaum was able to prescribe prism lenses to help a 5th grade girl with terribly lagging pursuits and poor reading comprehension. “After seeing the eye-tracking results, a lightbulb went o for the principal,” said the program coordinator. Children whose acuity was fine still had vision problems that slowed down their reading speed and comprehension. “The principal immediately recognized how much potential there was to improve children’s learning by addressing functional vision.”
The Challenge: Solo practitioner was intrigued to discover that many children have vision-related learning problems despite 20/20 acuity. He began exploring how to identify these problems and o er treatments to help his young patients perform better in school and in life.
The Solution: O er screening questionnaires and eye tracking tests that lead to more in-depth visual learning assessments and, if needed, vision therapy. After years of building up this service, Dr. Doud now dedicates nearly one-third of the office footprint to learning assessments and vision therapy activities. How He Did It: • Step 1: Started with a screening questionnaire and an automated eye tracking test so he could demonstrate the problems to parents and support his treatment plan. • Step 2: Gradually developed an in-depth visual learning workup that takes approximately 1 hour. It includes a battery of diagnostic tests and a 30-point questionnaire where patients grade functional vision problems on a scale from “never” to “always.” This is followed by a 1-hour consultation with the doctor on the treatment plan. • Step 3: After adding vision therapy and many inexpensive testing and training resources, he recently acquired a touch-screen saccadic device and virtual reality training equipment. Bottom line: The visual learning center is now a profit center in the practice, and Dr. Doud derives great professional satisfaction from it. “As an optometrist, o ering visual learning services has been very rewarding. I get to change people’s lives in a way that you just don’t see in routine vision care,” he says.
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