vision therapy

[optom123]

It's a bit early for me to ask this question but I was wondering if vision therapy is taught during the 4 years you are in Optometry school or do you have to undergo a residency in order to be competent in administering vision therapy?

What about doing an externship in a practice that consists primarily of vision therapy?

I've heard many good things regarding vision therapy, but for some reason its not that popular.


Thanks.

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[JMU07]

Depends on the school. I think all schools at least have a class for VT, but not all schools really have it in their clinics.

 

[KHE]

It's a bit early for me to ask this question but I was wondering if vision therapy is taught during the 4 years you are in Optometry school or do you have to undergo a residency in order to be competent in administering vision therapy?

What about doing an externship in a practice that consists primarily of vision therapy?

I've heard many good things regarding vision therapy, but for some reason its not that popular.


Thanks.

I think all the schools teach it. To the extent that you can get clinical experience in it, that varies from school to school. Some schools are more "into it" than others.

As far as it not being popular, the problem is that insurance doesn't cover it or if they do they only cover a few visits when most patients need many visits.

For children, parents tend to view it as academic therapy and as such, the school should be paying for it. The school of course, is NOT interested in paying for it.

I know of no practices in the country that do VT exclusively. There are a smattering of them that do it more than others but in 99% of the cases, it's not much of a money maker. It's done because the doc is into it.

 

[Meibomian SxN]

It's a bit early for me to ask this question but I was wondering if vision therapy is taught during the 4 years you are in Optometry school or do you have to undergo a residency in order to be competent in administering vision therapy?

What about doing an externship in a practice that consists primarily of vision therapy?

I've heard many good things regarding vision therapy, but for some reason its not that popular.


Thanks.

KHE pretty much answered this fully. I would just add that if you are interested in being well versed in vision therapy, then you should complete a COVD residency. You'll learn some practice management by doing so also.