What is visual stress?

"Visual sress" is a condition that often contributes to reading difficulties in adults and children. The condition is related to light sensitivity in disorders such as migraine and epilepsy. It causes distortions on the printed page when black print contrasts sharply with a bright background. Visual stress is often a big part of the problem in Dyslexia, but can also affect other poor readers, and may cause eyestrain and headaches in good readers.

Who is affected?

Approximately 11% of the population are affected, classic symptoms are:

  • Words move about on the page.
  • Reading gives me a headache.
  • I can't follow the lines and keep losing my place.
  • Reading make me tired.
  • My eyes get red and sore when I read.

What can be done to help?

The first thing you have to do is have a full eye examination carried out by a qualified Optometrist, who has a lot of experience with children, and understands the problems of visual stress. This is very important as reading problems and Dyslexia are often associated with other eye problems (e.g. muscle balance, which may need to be treated with spectacles or exercises).
The next step is to check for colour related visual stress with coloured overlays. I always check the improvement in reading with the chosen overlay objectively using the Wilkins Rate of Reading Test, before prescribing the overlay. If the overlay helps, the patient can take one home to use with print. If the overlay is making reading easier and continues to be useed regularly over a period of six weeks we recommend afull colour assessment with the Intuitive Colorimeter.

The Intuitive Colorimeter

The Colorimiter is an instrument designed to help the Optometrist find the specific colour that most helps an individual have more fluent, efficient, comfortable reading. The range of colours is huge and precision tinted lenses can be made to match exactly the hue and saturation of the optimum colour found with the Colorimeter. This system allows a much wider range of specific colours to be tried than any system using pre-tinted lenses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 


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