We are delighted to say we offer assessments for visual stress. This involves the use of specific colours for each individual patient in the form of an overlay or tinted spectacles to help combat symptoms.
Visual stress is a term used to describe visual discomfort, reading difficulties, light sensitivity and headaches from exposure to disturbing visual patterns in text. Individuals who find reading tiring and unpleasant, unknowingly experience visual stress. In many cases the symptoms of Visual Stress can be reduced by the use of coloured filters: either a coloured overlay or coloured lenses worn in spectacles.
Symptoms of visual stress aren’t always immediately obvious and severity of symptoms can vary from person to person. These can include:
- movement of print
- fading of print
- letters changing shape or size
- letters fading or becoming darker
- patterns appearing, sometimes describes as “worms” or “rivers” running through print
- illusions of colour – blobs of colour on the page or colours surrounding letters or words
- rapid tiring
- headache or eyestrain
Signs can include:
- moving closer to or away from the page
- becoming restless when reading
- using finger as a marker
- skipping words and lines
- rubbing eyes and blinking excessively
- low self esteem
Patients who require an overlay assessment must ensure they have had a full eye examination first to rule out other ocular anomalies.
The assessment consists of the patient looking at text through different colour acetates to determine the best colour/combination of colours to help reduce the patients visual stress. If deemed beneficial the patient can have precision tinted spectacles made. We can determine a specific individual colour for each patient, this is very often different from the overlay colour. Coloured lenses are much more convenient and can also be used for the board and computer work.
The simple application of an overlay or tinted spectacles can save years of anxiety where children struggle to read.
Precision tinted lenses may also help with migraine attacks and other neurological disorders. It is also proven that they may improve reading abilities in some individuals on the Autistic spectrum and patients who have acquired brain injuries.
If you know someone who may benefit from an assessment call us today.
