AM Skeffington performing retinoscopy
Our mission is to make the benefits of a comprehensive understanding of the visual process broadly available to change lives.
A comprehensive approach to optometric care considers the whole patient and the benefits of prevention, protection, remediation and enhancement of the visual process. Vision is a holistic process involving both the whole individual and the environment in which the individual functions.
We will do this through education for vision care providers including optometrists, vision therapists, and qualified others.
We will offer support for individual and group study, including, but not limited to, support of institutions of higher learning.
We will offer assistance with electronic publication of relevant materials.
We will assist in developing and implementing tools and systems for the effective delivery visual care.
We will provide assistance in the supply of lenses and vision training to those who might not otherwise have access.
We will share the power of lenses to alter the distribution of light to guide the development of the visual system to less adapted states.
Our Approach
Our approach to optometric care considers the whole patient and the benefits of prevention, protection, remediation and enhancement of the visual process. Vision is a holistic process involving both the whole individual and the environment in which the individual functions. The everyday experience of vision is the product of all of the following:
Months of visual development before birth, and a lifetime of continuing visual development, serve to connect motor control of eyes, hands, and body.
Visual-motor control and eye movements map out the visual space world that allows the body to be used as a referential base for posture, orientation, localization and understanding relationships.
The person uses their brain and eyes to sample, transform, and process information in the available light.
This product is distributed and stored throughout the brain and is integrated with reconstructed prior visual experiences to guide future actions.
Vision emerges from the integrated information generated by the brain and body, and the visual-motor and other sensorimotor processes, to derive meaning and direct movement.
The optometrist interested in this approach observes the patients’ responses to the demands of daily activities and how they respond to changes produced by lenses. Because lenses affect perception, posture, orientation and localization, these observations provide the optometrist with unique insight into the patients’ behavior.
The optometrist uses lenses during the examination to probe overall performance while answering the following questions:
What is the current visual status?
How did the current visual status develop?
How well can the patient meet present and future demands?
What potential exists to prevent visual dysfunctions, protect visual abilities and promote improved and enhanced performance?
Visual acuity, distance and near, is only one aspect of prescriptive care. The visual process is active, dynamic, evolving and plastic. Vision emerges from the integration and utilization of information that is learned and modified by experience. The visual process is holistic, treatment regimens use lenses, visual hygiene, and visual therapy emphasizing the whole person to promote the prevention of visual problems and improve visual aspects of performance. The optometrist establishes an environment allowing the patient to see more, observe more, experience more, learn more and become more efficient.