BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich.—Sometimes vision problems are difficult to isolate, treat and recognize. But the work being done by Debby Feinberg, OD, of Vision Specialists (www.vision-specialists.com) of Michigan, and eight optometrists that she and her team have trained so far through their established Vision Specialists Institute, is shining a light on an arena that holds a new opportunity for the profession and brings hope for treatment and vision correction solutions for many patients who suffer from a vision challenge known as binocular vision dysfunction.

Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD) describes any condition where the two eyes have difficulty working together as a team. This leads to eye misalignment, and when the misalignment is severe, it causes double imagery or double vision.

Feinberg has also identified a wider range of patients, most often those suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) or concussions, who have also had serious binocular vision-focusing issues.

Said Feinberg, “Identification of BVD has been hampered due to the lack of sensitivity of the current eye alignment tests to find the subtle misalignments. This compelled us to develop alternative techniques to diagnose the subtle misalignments, and when they are identified and treated with realigning prismatic lenses, the average patient reports an 80 percent reduction of symptoms.

“Our work with BVD began in 1995 and to date (2015) we have treated almost 8,000 patients, of which almost 3,000 have BVD due to a traumatic brain injury.”

Last month, Vision Specialists brought together a group of traumatic brain injury specialists, academic experts and practitioners who share Feinberg’s passion with helping veterans and injured athletes. The educative event’s keynote speaker was Dr. Dallas Hack. Dr. Hack (Colonel, US Army, retired) is a brain health consultant and member of the executive committee for the NCAA-DoD Grand Alliance: A Concussion Research and Education Initiative. He is also former director of the Combat Casualty Care Research Program and former coordinator for Army Medical Research’ Brain Health/Fitness Research program.

In addition, a 17th District Veterans Court judge, the Hon. Karen Khalil, invited 30 of her own colleagues from around the state of Michigan to learn how Vision Specialists are helping blast-injured veterans with prismatic realigning glasses.

Vision Specialists’ NeuroVisual Optometry Training Program (www.vsinst.com/neurovisual-optometry-referral-sources) provides a range of resources, research and materials to help ODs gain experience in treating these patients, including adults and children, and how they can work and cultivate referral relationships with other medical specialists.

A range of published journal articles, a TedX talk, a book and other materials have helped formulate the extensive, COPE-approved training that Feinberg and her colleagues offer to other optometrists. The goal is to educate more doctors about the vision problems and raise awareness about solutions to patients and their caregivers across the country.

Attendees learned about brain injury implications from Dr. Dallas Hack, keynote speaker for the special event organized by Vision Specialists. Dr. Hack (Colonel, US Army, retired), is a brain health consultant and member of the executive committee for NCAA-DoD Grand Alliance, which is a concussion research and education initiative.

Attendees learned about brain injury implications from Dr. Dallas Hack, keynote speaker for the special event organized by Vision Specialists. Dr. Hack (Colonel, US Army, retired), is a brain health consultant and member of the executive committee for NCAA-DoD Grand Alliance, which is a concussion research and education initiative. Debby Feinberg, OD, founder, NeuroVisual Optometry and director of clinical instruction,
Vision Specialists Institute. 		The Michigan event drew 70 attendees. (L to R) Deb Larrabee, (Colonel, US Army, retired) and director of protocol, National Guard Bureau; The Honorable Karen Khalil, Judge of 17th District Veterans Court in Redford, Mich.; Jeff Zupancic, director of strategic partnerships, Vision Specialists of Michigan; and Christopher Larrabee, Colonel, US Army.