Benefits Of Behavioural Optometry: Reasons That Are Making It a Wise Alternative

Many times, we consider vision and sight as the same thing. While sight is just seeing the image, vision deals with the quality of that image like its sharpness, and judgement of the distance between objects and you. This vision is what is dealt with mainly in behavioural optometry. A behavioural optometrist tackles the vision problem in a holistic manner i.e. they do not consider the sight and the eyes to be separate entities but a part of the entire being and there are many aspects to vision problem than just myopia and astigmatism. Stress, chemical, and hormonal levels in the body, neural pathways, all impact the sight, as they affect the vision.

Should I Opt For Behavioural Optometry?

While you are wondering whether you need to pay a visit to the optometrist, you can ask yourself these questions and if you tick more than 5 boxes, you should pay a visit to a behavioural optometry clinic:

• You suffer a vision blur when you are looking at something in the distance.
• Suffer from spatial confusion, i.e. having a hard time to determine distances between your body and an object.
• Having difficulty reading small prints and find them often merging together and sometimes it escalates to larger objects too like doors or sofas.
• Misjudging the depth of things and as a result, you often trip over small bumps or even lift your legs unnecessarily over thin air, as you could not locate the position of the object.
• Uneven steps and low heights make you dizzy. Again, an advanced form of spatial confusion.
• There is poor coordination between your limbs and your vision. Writing outside the line or feel your way while you walk or want to place something.
• Irritation in the eyes, itching and redness in the eyes, headaches, and dizziness when you are trying to focus harder.
• And lastly, a poor posture of your head and neck as a result of constantly squinting and trying to read smaller prints. The droopiness of your head makes your problem worse.

In behavioural optometry, the doctor takes note of all such problems and they chart a treatment according to the requirement. Having a pair of spectacles does not solve the issue, especially with children who are still in the development phase and any wrong step might affect them and inflict permanent impairment. When you opt for behavioural optometry, your assessment is made by conducting tests like giving you fine prints to read, a retinal scan is done, to detect if you are suffering from any other disorders like glaucoma, as well your habit and lifestyle is also taken into consideration.

How Will Behavioural Optometry Benefit Me?

As we realize, coordination is essential for our daily existence. If we miss it even by an inch, we might face serious issues, be it related to driving or on our professional front. The goals of behavioural optometry are to help you find and master this coordination, even if you have been suffering from a vision-related issue for some time and to increase your accuracy and judgment skills based on your sight. The ways of working of behavioural optometry are,

• The belief that vision is not just inherent but you can learn to see. Sight is a birth gift but to use it, you need to develop your brain.
• You need to learn to incorporate all four senses to provide you with an accurate sense of your surroundings. If there is no proper coordination between sight and feel, you will suffer from motion sickness.
• Even if you have a perfect vision, the lifestyle you lead and continuously looking at the bright screens of phones or computers affects the vision adversely. Many times, injuries modify your vision and you might develop astigmatism. To address this, you need to visit behavioural optometry.

Thus, this constant load on the eyes affects your vision by tiring out your optical nerves. As a result, you might find a constant pressure at the back of your eyes, your eyes watering and headaches become rampant. With behavioural optometry, the optometrist takes an overall report to analyze the root of the problem before prescribing treatments.