Journey through the Cortex

Tutorial: Binocular Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:00:02 PST

Binocular vision is one of the hallmarks of the human race that has bestowed on it the supremacy in the hierarchy of the animal kingdom. It is an asset with normal alignment of the two eyes, but becomes a liability when the alignment is lost.

Binocular Single Vision may be defined as the state of simultaneous vision, which is achieved by the coordinated use of both eyes, so that separate and slightly dissimilar images arising in each eye are appreciated as a single image by the process of fusion. Thus binocular vision implies fusion, the blending of sight from the two eyes to form a single percept.

http://webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu/eyeforum/tutorials/Bhola-BinocularVision.htm

If Thy Eye Offends Thee, Pluck It Out

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:00:06 PST

“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. "

-- Matthew 5:29-30

Apologies to the right eye, as it is innocent, I think. But, it's my left eye that should be plucked out so that my whole body isn't cast into hell. However, I am on a tear and may just want to pluck out both eyes for good measure.

I'm so annoyed with the *%#*!!! left eye that I could just yank it out, throw it on the floor and kick it around like a soccer ball.

I just got my new prism lens for my left eye: 1.5 diopter base down. I got purple frames and was planning a glorious post on the joys of purple prisms. I was imagining that I would be ascending into the glories of 3 dimensional vision and saying good bye to flat land. But, alack and alas, it was not to be.

Not all is bad and some things have improved. I got glasses that fit my prescription for near and farsightedness; so it's good to be able to see road signs in the dark. For the last month, I had been driving 80 miles home in the dark pretty much being guided by GPS. Not cool. I had been taking my glasses off while reading my iPad. Also, not cool. So it's good to have the lenses for day to day stuff.

I can also see more of the world around me. I think this is due to the prisms. For instance, I can see further down the Pennsylvania Turnpike and more of the beautiful vistas of Amish farm country around me. When I went downtown through South Philadelphia, I could see that there are lovely mosaics on the buildings that I had missing all along. Apparently, an artist called Isiah Za

Mosaic #1 (Photo credit: 1015 / J.L. McVay)

gar has been mosaicing South Street for the past 15 years and it is only now that I am seeing how many mosaics are on South Street. These are very beautiful Cubist-style mosaics reminiscent of Picasso. They don't appear on any tourist map but are quite stunning to see. In general, there's a lot of South Street that I have been missing.

McDonald's store front on South Street, Philadelphia (Photo credit: smedero)

However, I was expecting the world. I went to vision therapy right after getting my new glasses and found that I wasn't doing the 4 dot Worth test as well as

South Street Philadelphia (Photo credit: Retromoderns)

the other day. I wasn't quite getting all my dots lined up and sometimes my stupid left eye was sitting down on the job. We fooled around with prisms and tried adding 1 more diopter to the right eye to make it 2 diopters based down (fatter end of the prism on top) and 1 base down/base up diopter to the left eye also 1 more diopter horizontally to the left or right eye. Maybe the prisms aren't quite right. Or my eyes are just flaking out. Last time that I did the 4 dot Worth test, everything was lining up horizontally. No problem. Or maybe, if you add a base down prism to one eye, everybody else gets knocked around. Who knows.

Also, my left eye started suppressing and I could only see 2 dots sometimes. Curse you, ya lazy, backsliding, backstabbing eye! Get off your lazy duff! Stop goldbrickin'!!!

My random dot stereogram test also slid backwards. I only got 16 correct and

Image via Wikipedia

14 wrong on Base In. I did much better the last time. I had 28 correct and 7 wrong.

Mentioned my concerns to Becky and she said that sometimes it takes a little bit of time for the eyes to get used to the prisms and that vision doesn't get automatically corrected. You have to work at it. Sigh. I was imagining it would be pouff! Done. I was expecting Tibetan enlightenment where you are jetted from this world into the next instantaneously. Instead, I am going to have to go through the cycle of rebirth until I finally reach the nirvana of 3d vision.

My other little vision therapy exercises went without problem. We worked my accommodative system with flippers. I did a search for the words in a sentence pretty quickly. And did a visual reasoning exercise of finding the shapes that belong to the same group as the target group pretty well. Missed one problem completely because I missed the hash marks on the tail of a shape. If I hadn't bollixed up that problem, I would have really aced the exercise. Did the Michigan tracking test of looking for letters in the alphabet. Finally, I did the aperture rule. I can get all of one set of pictures done when I am only looking through a single hole. I get stuck on cactus when I look through two holes.

Another thing, I noticed is that my posture is shifting. I got a neck ache on the way home. I think that the lenses were getting my head into proper position. I started sitting up straighter in the car and I don't think my neck muscles were ready for that. Also, on long drives, I would often cock my left knee outwards. Not very lady like. But comfortable. I think I was shifting my body around to keep my visual system in order. With the prisms, I notice that I have been driving with my left leg straight.

Well. We shall see what the next few weeks bring. Either I will grow into my new lenses or maybe I need to adjust the prisms. We shall see.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

What You See Is What You Hit | Help ADD with Vision Therapy

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:00:10 PST

Good athletes generally have sharper vision than poor athletes. The question is: Can athletes improve their vision? A local optometrist says they can.

John Palumbo rested his chin on a bar and fixed his eyes on a red cross at the center of a screen in front of him. For the moment, the red cross is all that is visible. The rest of the screen is the dark night of the soul. But presently little dots of light begin to flash on and off at random points on the screen. The dots flash in his “peripheral fields,” above and below the red cross on which Palumbo has been told to keep his gaze fixed, and to the left and right. Each time Palumbo sees one of the stars of light flicker on, he pushes a button. Meanwhile, the computer inside the machine prints a graph of his responses.

http://www.helpaddvisiontherapy.com/newspaper-articles/what-you-see-is-what-you-hit/

Only Time

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:00:06 PST

Who can say
where the road goes

where the day flowsonly time

--Enya

Last.fm Cover

Trying to get ahold of that elusive, evasive, effluent called Time.

Did more time management work in occupational therapy with Wilma. I decided on a mix of Toodledo and Iphone/Ipad calendars. I think one of the things that has been screwing me up is that there is a difference between Planning and Scheduling.

Toodledo App
Image by 铁蛋骑士 via Flickr

Planning gets lists of things to do. Scheduling lays them out. I have been trying to do both of them at the same time and doing none too successfully.

So I am hatching a new scheme. I am using Toodledo app on the iPhone to enter tasks on the fly when I am running around and the Toodledo app on the iPad to bulk enter tasks. I could do Toodledo on the web via my Mac if I chose but I am moving away from the Mac except for bulk tasks or w

riting my blog. Toodledo stores its data on a website so I can keep the iPhone and iPad in sync automatically.

ToodleDo on the Web
Image by yashima via Flickr

I subscribe to the Toodledo calendar on the Calendar app on the iPhone. It can also present all the tasks in a spreadsheet so that I can look at all of them and check how I am setting priorities and deadlines. Still doesn't let me see dependencies (stuff that depends on other stuff being done first) but is a good start.

I have to get Lion in order to get everyone to synch together. I do tend to enter appointments in my iPhone calendar as I am often on the run. I don't want to put tasks in the iPhone calendar since it is way too small so I am leaving tasks in Toodledo on the iPhone. However, I do want a global view on the iPad so I want my appointments to flow together with the tasks so I don't overload myself.

Wilma is pretty satisfied with this scheme except that I didn't get her definition of what the Highest Priority task should be. Her feeling is that the "Top" tasks should be very urgent tasks with dire consequences if they don't get done. I designated Top as the tasks that I wanted to get done this week; Wilma thinks that they should have been High as they weren't particularly urgent. I just wanted to make sure I get some tasks done.

Also, Wilma noted some of the tasks have multiple steps so I should make subtasks.

Finally, Toodledo has an automatic scheduler when I don't feel like populating my calendar. I can always tweak the tasks after they have been plopped into place

Right now, I am using the system for the piddly tasks of day-to-day life. I noted that I am not putting in the "Big Tasks" of the "Big Stuff" -- the dreams -- that I want to fulfill. However, we both agreed one step at a time. First work out a good system for piddly tasks and then put in the more complex tasks.

Prime Yourself to Prescribe Prism

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:40:00 PST

Good overview of how to prescribe prism lenses:

Prism can be very useful when treating patients with symptomatic binocular vision disorders, but opinions vary widely about how to best determine the amount to prescribe. Indeed, common methods for determining prismatic prescriptions can result in different magnitudes of recommended prism for the same patient. This lack of consensus, along with rough guidelines and apparently contradictory rules of thumb, may make some clinicians uncomfortable prescribing prismand may even deter them for doing so.

http://www.revoptom.com/content/d/ophthalmic_lenses___and___dispensary/c/15234/

Strabismus and Mental Health

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:23:15 PST

There's some interesting studies done correlating strabismus, a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other, and mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.

According to a study done by the Mayo Clinic, Children with exotropia (eyes pointing outwards) were 3.1 times more likely to develop a psychiatric disorder than were control subjects when monitored to a mean age of 20.3 years. Children with esotropia (eyes pointing inwards) were no more likely to develop mental illness than were control subjects when monitored for similar periods. Patients with intermittent exotropia also were significantly more likely to have greater numbers of mental health disorders, mental health emergency department visits, and mental health hospitalizations and to have suicidal or homicidal ideation.

Depression not otherwise specified, ADHD, adjustment disorder, illicit drug use, and alcoholism were the 5 most common types of disorders. Although depression was similarly prevalent among case and control subjects, dysthymia and major depression were more common among subjects with strabismus than among control subjects. ADHD, adjustment disorder, drug use, major depression, and learning disorders were all more prevalent among children with exotropia, compared with control subjects, whereas eating disorders were the only significantly increased group of disorders among children with esotropia.

Movement analysis in infancy may be useful for early diagnosis of autism

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:00:01 PST

Autistic individuals use different parts of their brain for movement Image via Wikipedia

Very useful article about spotting autism very early in infants and children. Autistic children showed movement disturbances that could be detected clearly at the age of 4–6 months, and sometimes ev
en at birth. Disturbances such as shape of the mouth and in some or all of the milestones of development, including, lying, righting, sitting, crawling, and walking were noted by observers.

Movement disorders in autism are the subject of much controversy. While most autistic persons are unimpaired with finger dexterity and gross motor skills and have in fact been often been described as particularly dextrous and coordinated, autistic children between the ages of 3 and 10 walk somewhat like Parkinsonian adults in that they walk more slowly than normal, with shorter steps.

The article linked to below describes and analysis of some of the arrested development in autism.
http://www.pnas.org/content/95/23/13982.full

Gifted? ADHD? or Both? A SENG Public Awareness Effort

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:00:04 PST

In addition to the recent regrouping of the autism spectrum, definitions of other diagnoses seem to be challenged as well. Very bright individuals run the risk of being diagnosed with ADHD or misdiagnosed.
The nonprofit organization, Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), recently sent a letter of concern to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in response to the AAP’s new guideline discussed in “ADHD: Clinical Practice Guideline for the Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity in Children and Adolescents”(Pediatrics, 2011, Vol 128 [5], November, pp. 1-17.) because the new guidelines fail to direct physicians to take into account intellectual giftedness.

James T. Webb, who also co-authored the book Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults and is highly published in the gifted field, believes that while ADHD can and does occur in gifted children, many traits and behaviors characteristic of giftedness are frequently misinterpreted as ADHD, particularly in the very young.

“Some of these traits include being strong-willed, impulsive, impatient with the relative slowness of others, and having the tendency towards heightened sensitivity, perfectionism, and intense focus on personal interests and experiences,” Webb says.

http://www.sengifted.org/archives/1472

Another Day of Vision Therapy -- Jan 24

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:19:43 PST

Don't know what's gotten into me, but I have been quite late again for Vision Therapy. Fortunately, they are pretty nice about it. It's not very nice to people, and, I am on an organization and time management kick, so I am trying to stick to schedules and so forth.

At any rate, we made sure the left eye was up and running. Becky had me wear red and green glasses and walk to and from a light source. She didn't want me to see either red or green; just a nice clear picture and my left eye obliged.

She put on roughly an equivalent amount of prism in some lenses and set a snake in front of me. Not a real one, just a plastic twisty thing that I could play with. Boy, did it look like a real sculpture! It just popped out. There was a chart with eccentric circles and different pictures and they just bugged right out at me!

I looked at a secretary's curly hair and it looked like a mane! No. She doesn't have one of those beehive or bouffant hairstyles. Her hair is tastefully done. Just curly, that's all.

I had to wear another set of prisms and red/green lenses while I matched words to a grid. That was hard. I could barely see the words.

We worked with the apperture rule again. I try and make two pictures become one by either converging or diverging my eyes.

Then went to pick up my husband in Trenton. That was a long drive. I was pooped.

I am having my accountant check to see if mileage to and from a doctor's office is tax deductible. According to Liberty Tax Service, it is. My trip to Trenton isn't deductible but back and forth to my house is.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Kicking My Left Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:00:09 PST

Long Island Rail Road
Image via Wikipedia

Went out to Long Island, New York City to get evaluated for a new vision program, Revital Vision aka Neurovision, which is supposed to help a variety of vision problems including Amblyopia. I don't have a diagnosis of Amblyopia, per se, but I do have a lot of symptoms relating to the fact that my Left Eye just isn't feeding all the visual information in the world back to my brain. My left eye suppresses.

I am not sure whether it is the chicken or the egg. I have intermittent divergent strabismus. Which means that my eyes don't converge on and off. Whether my brain said the heck with this foolishness and I am just going to tilt my head and ignore the left eye so that I can have a coherent view of the world. Many people with my problem might have diplopia -- seeing double vision. But my brain said no. Or maybe the other way around. Maybe the left eye just sat on its duff.

At any rate, it was an interesting ride out to Great Neck. Went past the Chinatown of Flushing, New York and the marshlands of Little Neck and then landed in Great Neck. Very ritzy place. Lots of Mercedes and Lexus. The doctor's office on Great Neck is right on Long Island Sound so it had a lovely view of the water and sailboats.

This doctor is a lot more high tech. Used Optivision to take a picture of the eye and assess its general health and then another computerized program to assess ambylopia. He didn't think that I had amblyopia either but that I had enough similar symptoms to warrant a trial of RevitalVision. I had explained to him the symptoms that I had during Cellfield program that I wasn't seeing white on grey back ground or red on red background with my left eye. I could see fine with my right eye.

Fortunately, RevitalVision is a home based program so I don't have to truck out to Long Island. I will be doing RevitalVision 3x a week for 10 week and will start it after I get my prism lenses. I am optimistic that this will help with my left eye. If my brain isn't annoyed by my misaligned eyes and my left eye wakes up, I should be in good shape. Between doing vision therapy and this program, I feel good about not needing surgery.
Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Occupational Therapy: Time Management Continued

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:51:03 PST

Time management continues. We have been working on daily planning and scheduling and trying to tailor different schemes to my personal needs.

Toodledo
Image by yashima via Flickr

We have come up with a task list and have assigned different to a few days. This is pretty comfortable for me as I sort of do it kind of on and off in my iPhone with the app, Toodledo. I

just go in phases where I follow my Toodledo and phases where I fall off the organizational horse. Some of my failings are justified as I am too tired from therapy or something important came up. And some are not. But, since I am prompted by Wilma, I am trying to pay more attention to planning my days.

Spreadsheet Image via Wikipedia

I have a lot of problems trying to populate a spreadsheet with my day to day activities. Spreadsheets are the basis for day planners and online calendars. But, these devices just get way too onerous so we have moved to a list. The problem with lists is that you don't get the lookahead that yo
u can get with a spreadsheet. It is hard to track dependencies-- i.e. where you have one task that depends on another before you can complete it. Also, it is hard to track conflicts between multiple tasks that run in parallel. The funny thing is that I can notice at work that some managers who plan using task lists often fail to account for dependencies and conflicts leading to project delays. Funny how it is that it is easier to spot you own faults in other peoples!

Microsoft Project
Image via Wikipedia

The funny thing is that I can do this at work on complicated projects using Microsoft Project but not with simple day to day to tasks.

Wilma is proposing that maybe I try putting a piece of shelf paper on the wall and color coding different tasks with their deadlines and using the color Red to designate urgent tasks. That way I can see what is coming up for a given week and a given month.

This might be one way to handle it. But we are going to look at other things.

I asked how much of this problem might be a visual problem. Wilma said that it is a good question as planning and organization are closely related to memory and visual spatial functions. She found a chart (and, yes, I can handle charts!) that shows the interrelationships between neurological functions and age cohorts (ie what to expect 0-3, 3-6, etc). The neurological functions are arranged such that they flow across the page horizontally in the manner that they are related. Temporal sequential functions involved in planning are organized between memory and visual spatial.

I explained to her that my audiologist, Maxine, had suspected a memory problem as I could only remember four or maybe five instructions when I was doing "Brain Fitness" by Posit Science. My other physical therapist also suspects some memory problems. Maxine did not think it was an audiological problem but a memory problem and had sent me off to a neuropsychologist to be evaluated for using the Cogmed program. He looked at my scores and said that I didn't have a memory problem. So I had left it at that.

Wilma thinks that my problem maybe could get better with vision therapy or maybe not. We are doing a lot of higher order visual cognition work so vision therapy might jar something loose.

In addition, it could be "Function Junction" where you can score well on assessments that measure each function specifically; but not work well in real life where you need integration of function. It is the junction of the functions on the above mentioned chart that can be the source of the problem.

Wilma noted that she worked with people who have brain injury who seem to have the same sort of problem and she is going to go off and consult the literature for specific therapies and tools used. I am going to look at different iPhone/iPad apps that can be used for organization. Wilma is not a fan of the iPhone because its screen is so small that it doesn't let you look too far into the future. So maybe the iPad might be used for planning and, by using the syncing feature of the iPhone, the iPhone is used for daily reminders.

We shall see. I think I am coming closer to understanding some of the root of my organizational problems.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:00:00 PST

One of the major changes being review by a panel is the definition of autism. The definition is under review by an expert panel appointed by the American Psychiatric Association, which is completing work on the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The study results, presented on Thursday at a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association, are still preliminary, but they offer the latest and most dramatic estimate of how tightening the criteria for autism could affect the rate of diagnosis.

Image via Wikipedia

The "vagueness" of the DSM-IV criteria have, it is thought, led to too many being dignosed with autism. In the new analysis, Dr., along with Brian Reichow and James McPartland, both at Yale, used data from a large 1993 study that served as the basis for the current criteria. They focused on 372 children and adults who were among the highest-functioning and found that over all, only 45 percent of them would qualify for the proposed autism spectrum diagnosis now under review. Proposed changes to the definition would eliminate the diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome and what's known as Pervasive Developmental Disorder, not otherwise specified. They would be combined with autism into one diagnosis, Autism Spectrum Disorder. "When we looked at individuals with cognitive abilities in the average range, it looks like half of them will continue to meet and half wouldn't meet criteria," McPartland said. Some have speculated that various environmental causes were the reason while others have pointed to the expanded diagnostic criteria.

The DSM-IV (1994) and DSM-IVR (2000) specified that a person had to present with six out of twelve criteria in such areas. The new proposed criteria in the DSM-V introduce a new diagnosis, autism spectrum disorder, that will encompass a number of current diagnoses, Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). Under the changes, the manual would eliminate Asperger's and a disorder known as PDD-NOS and instead group everyone under autism spectrum disorder. It also would tighten the criteria for those who get diagnosed. In one analysis based on a 1993 study, 55% of those diagnosed would not qualify under the new definition--though the authors say the percentage could be high because they focused on high-functioning patients.

http://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_m3_2/autism-aspergers-disorders.html#findmore

New Autism Rule Will Exclude Many, Study Suggests from New York Times
Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Vision: I'm Coming Around the Bend

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:06:36 PST

Was a bit late to my last vision therapy appointment, unfortunately. Did back to back doctors' appointments and my day's schedule slipped. So, I didn't do as much as what I wanted which was unfortunate.

When I walked in, I had skipped lunch and was as hungry as all get out. I remarked to Becky that if she had any children who were misbehaving that I would be glad to take them off her hands and eat them up. She said that she could have used me on Monday. Lucy, our receptionist, ran off and very kindly rustled up some soup and salad out of the office kitchen. I was ever so grateful.

Visual System
Image via Wikipedia

I was working with Becky, the head therapist, and I always do get a lot out of working with her so I hated cutting short my time. She did a quick rough check of my vertical alignment with some prisms and found out that I only needed two diopters base up. This is great news as I read that correcting vertical alignment with vision therapy and a prescription for prism lenses can be done up to eight diopters.

So, what's a diopter? According to Wikipedia, a diopter is a "unit of measurement of the optical power of a lens or curved mirror, which is equal to the reciprocal of the focal length measured in metres (that is, 1/metres)."

Well, diopters differ depending on what you are measuring. You have diopters when measuring a regular prescription and you have diopters when measuring the correction for a prism. In my case, for two diopters that means I am misaligning my world vertically by 2 centimeters when looking at something one meter away. Apparently, I have been compensating for this by tilting my head slightly and cocking my body askew. Wearing prisms will hopefully help correct my posture as I won't need to twist my head around to keep a coherent view of the world.

Back to vision therapy. I worked on looking at a stereogram and trying to line up dots on 10 white crosses that were arranged along a railroad track. There's another drill where I used two sticks to point to two different images as I tried to fuse them. I also did a visual memory drill where I memorized a picture and answered questions about it while I worked with two sets of flippers.

Then, I ran off to another eye doctor to get my new set of glasses. GPS isn't always the most clever device in the world and so I was running a bit late again. He basically confirmed what Becky saw and gave me a prescription for 1.5 diopter base up prisms. Base up prisms are thicker on the bottom and thinner on top. I am also getting transitions lens. I have always been sensitive to harsh sunlight and glare. All my life, I have not been terribly comfortable in bright light and I have just endured. Apparently, with strabismus, you are just more sensitive to light. The word strabismus comes from the Latin word, "strabismos" which means to squint and squint I do in bright light.

Adding prisms isn't expensive, only $10 with my vision insurance. Adding transitions is going to be more expensive. But, I will get a cute pair of purple prism glasses in two weeks. Looking forward to my new world.

I really do think I have just come around a bend with my vision therapy and the end is in sight. I believe that correcting 1.5 diopters vertical is doable. I really don't think I will need surgery for this. I think we are going to be hitting the core issues of waking up my left eye and aligning my eyes vertically. Using prisms with vision therapy to reduce vertical misalignment can be done up to 8 diopters. So, I think I can do 1.5 diopters prisms and work on slowly decreasing the use of prism as my eyes get aligned.

It is a big relief to hear some good news like this.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Vision Checkup 1/12/11

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:26:14 PST

Had a vision checkup yesterday and have documented a big jump in vision.

Did the Worth 4 Dot test. Got the 30% dots nicely converged without effort. Couldn't get the other dots so nicely lined up. They all lined up nicely in the middle of the screen but they couldn't get the two white dots to line up properly.

Did the stereogram with the clown and that went nicely. Stereogram with clown up to the letter H and all the way on the other side.

Did a computerized test of Base In and Out and two other measures. Did a computerized stereogram test. Passed everything except Base Out.

Saw the Doctor and he checked my vision and had me look at a chart with letters lined up and asked me when they doubled. He moved the letters around both horizontally and vertically.

At the end of the exam, he said that he thinks I might need vertical prisms of about 10 diopters.

After the exam, I had a short vision therapy session. I am wearing prisms in my glasses and playing games lining up words that I see on the screen. Also, we started working both the accommodative and ciliary muscles with different lenses. I looked at a ball and arranged my lenses in the order that made the ball seem smaller to seeming larger.

Then I drove to Philadelphia and went to my collage class at the Fleischer. As if I didn't have enough to do with exercising my visual system. Today we made patterns to use during our collages.
Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE SELF DISCOVERY

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:00:00 PST

The Alexander Technique places a great emphasis on releasing any unnecessary neck tension in order that the head balance lightly and freely on top of the spine. F. Matthias Alexander, the originator of the Alexander Technique, coined the phrase "primary control" to describe the relationship between the head and the neck. When there is no interference with the proper functioning of this relationship, he said that "... an influence is constantly operating in (one's) favor, tending always to raise the standard of functioning with the self, both in outside activity and during sleep." In this article, Nicholas Brockbank explores some ways to learn about the state of your head/neck relationship - and how to change it for the better.

http://alexandertechnique.com/articles/brockbank/

Lady Gaga Is Not Doing Vision Therapy

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:31:18 PST

Out here in Lancaster County, there has been a bit of a todo as to whether Lady Gaga would move out this way. I trek out to Leola in Lancaster County for vision therapy so I am hearing the scoop first hand from my locals

She does have a boyfriend, Taylor Kinney (star of "Vampire Diaries -- not Vampire Dairies), who is from Lancaster.

Gaga has been spotted at a Lancaster County Shooting Range and at Jack's Family Tavern in Millersville and Trio Restaurant off Marietta Avenue. She also has been at the Lilith Giant. She has been pretty low-key, a no glitz, no 'look at me I'm important' kind of way.

There was a rumor that she would be buying a mansion in a gated community, "Brent Creek" but that is not true.

It is also not true that vision therapists are going to adopt Lady Gaga glasses.

They are not trading in prism lenses, yoked or not, for this:

or:

Occlusion or patching will not be done like this:

There are no paparazzi following vision therapists or their patients, so these glasses are unnecessary:

Vision therapists won't have their patients do Groffman diagrams in their lenses like this:

Vision Therapists won't have their patients wear this:

Lady Gaga will not be doing vision therapy.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Alexander Technique Vs Feldenkrais Method

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:00:02 PST

Personal account of the differences between Alexander and Feldenkrais method.
http://www.tifaq.org/articles/alexander-technique-vs-feldenkrais-method.html

Tempurpedic Mattress and Sensory Integration

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:00:10 PST

Some of us with Sensory Integration problems find that we like Deep Pressure. Temple Gandin, in fact, likes deep pressure so much that she crawled into a cattle press and started giving herself a full body squeeze. Did you ever think that a mattress could do something like this for you?

Recently, my husband and I had finally become so disgusted with our mattress that we decided to do something about it. You know, a lot of people just don't like going out and shopping for the mundane. There's nothing that exciting about mattresses. You don't go into work and brag about a mattress purchase the same way that you do about a hybrid car, a BMW, a great meal, the latest electronic gadget, a new dress or whatever. No one wants to hear about it.

However, our old mattress was just hurting us. Our backs, necks and legs were hurting. Hubby would get out of bed all doubled over. We had taken care of the mattress according to the manufacturer's instructions but after 5 years we had huge ditches in our mattress. I tried complaining to the store and they would only replace the mattress if there was a 1 1/2" inch depression. They sent a technician out and he measured the depth of the depression and found that it was only 1" and that we were stuck in the depression until it deepened to 1 1/2" regardless of our discomfort. Well, so much for customer service and standing behind your product and the notion that "The Customer Is Always Right". I mean that this mattress was touted for hand tied box springs and a 10-15 year guarantee. We thought we bought had bought quality.

So hubby and I crawled in and out of our ditches and started to feel lousier and lousier. Finally, I said this is it and we are buying a new mattress.

We got snookered into an end of year sale and tried a number of mattresses. At first, we didn't like the memory molded mattress but as we journeyed through Mattress Land, we found we actually got used to it. Told the salesman about our woes with our current mattress. I just said that it was promised to last for 10 years and by year 3 we were not comfortable. Maybe the old store was right on a technicality in terms of replacing the mattress but we weren't happy customers. So the salesman ruled out a bunch of mattresses right then and there. So we tried the Tempurpedic and we liked it. We also bought memory foam pillows.

Hubby has been very happy in the Tempurpedic and a lot of the aches and pains in his backs and legs that he had in the morning. I find that the memory pillow really ends a lot of the neck ache that was associated with my osteoarthritis in the neck.

Most interestingly, I find that sleeping in memory foam mattress is actually calming and soothing. The bed molds to me and I find that it is soothing. I get a nice feeling of security. It provides gentle pressure from below. I get gentle, pressured sensation in my back, arms, neck, legs and head. I am actually thinking about getting a weighted blanket for my top side. If I have a weighted blanket and get a gentle smush from above and I have a mattress that gives me a bit of a smush from below, I could be very comfortable. I'd have a very gentle cattle press.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Tinnitus: Cheap Substitute for Neuronomics?

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:56:22 PST

Tinnitus Image via Wikipedia

As my gentle readers know, among my multiple maladies, I have tinnitus. When I went looking for relief, the Neromonics was recommended to me by an eminent ENT who also suffers from tinnitus. I dutifully went off to seek an audiologist for an assessment. She also recommended Neuromonics.

Unfortunately, Neuromonics is quite expensive and is not covered by insurance. Scientists have found the mechanism underlying tinnitus so there goes one objection by the insurance companies. But they have their ways of slow walking treatment so I am not hopeful.

Well, I guess we are all going to wait for a pill to be discovered and the insurance company will be paying lots of people well in excess of the $5000 cost of Neuromonics as the first pill will not be a generic. I guess at that time, the insurance companies will not think that Neuromonics will be quite so experimental.

At any rate, what to do until then?

As I am getting a hearing aide anyway, I could bite the bullet and just pay the $5000 for Neuromonics.
I could get just the hearing aide I need for $2800 and continue working with my Sound Oasis and wait until a pharmaceutical solution arrives. There are clinical trials in Europe.

By accident, I thought my Sound Oasis had died on me so I bought a new one. I got a Sound Oasis 650 and the SC-300-02 Sound Oasis Ear Therapy Sound Card. The Ear Therapy Sound Card has a series of selections of white noise or music with multiple high range frequencies to mask tinnitus. My tinnitus frequency is at 5000 Hz and we shall see how well the sound card works. Sound Oasis has a partnership going with the tinnitus Practitioners Association so there may be more justification for using this device. Although I do note that the testimonial on the website states that the person is encouraged to do Tinnitus Retraining Therapy so I think the website is hedging their bets and not stating that they have a cure.

My tinnitus flares up right after a very strenuous session in therapy or when I am tired. I am going to try this for a while and see if it will work to diminish tinnitus as well as mask the tinnitus flareup.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Knowing Your Left From Right

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:59:43 PST

I used to have a lot of problems knowing when something was on my left or right or going to my left or my right. I haven't had a problem in quite some time. Just thought I'd let my Gentle Reader know.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Vision Therapy, Driving To Amish Country and Math Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:11:03 PST

Amish Buggy Image via Wikipedia

Drove out to Lancaster County for another session of vision therapy. The funny thing is that as my vision improves, the scenery changes! I am seeing more detail of the farm country as I go by. I am incredibly aware of everything around me from seeing the various processing plants and trucking facilities that bring Lancaster County foods to the Philadelphia market to the scenery of farms and rural homes that line the secondary highways and main streets of Lancaster County. As I was
arriving at vision therapy, I got behind an Amish buggy. In the cloudy haze, the buggy had its rear lights on. As we approached the turn for the clinic's parking lot, the buggy put on its turn signal (yes, the Amish do have turn signals on buggies!) and pulled into the parking lot. As the occupants of the buggy got out, I noticed that the child was one of my fellow patients.

Bernell Variable Tranaglyph

Becky, the head therapist, was running the group today and was working my ornery old left eye. We had started to work on some of the variable tanaglyphs that exercise binocular vision with polarized lenses and I found sometimes that I couldn't even see the "L" in a lineup with "R". That means my left eye was flaking out on me. I did OK with another variable tanaglyph where I only had to match up letters in a circle.

Bernell Accomodative Flippers

I did a little bit of patching on the right eye and also had me work on some quizzes and brain teasers with flippers. I am really good in American History. But a good part of that is because I had the Best Ever American History class with the Most Amazing Teacher. When my American History Teacher dies, I am sure that there will be hundreds of us coming to his funeral. He was very strict but had a great sense of humor. We didn't just memorize facts but we learned cause and effects and how to integrate facts into a cohesive whole.

Brain Teaser Image via Wikipedia

I did OK on the brain teasers. Some of them I know I will have to work on at home. Especially the shapes and nets and mathematical sequences. In addition to working on basic visual system function th

More Brain Teasers Image via Wikipedia

at exercises the left eye and works on 3D vision, many of these exercises also work on higher order cognition that is associated with the visual system. I mean, who would think math and vision go together? But they do.

I did well in math until I switched schools. Unfortunately, I screwed myself up and convinced myself that I could go directly into Pre-Calculus without Trigonometry. The two school systems had curriculum that didn't mesh well so I chose not to bore myself and took a class that I was not prepared for as opposed to repeating 2/3 of a year of math. You have to understand that I was incredibly bored in my first school system and could get away with jumping around in the curriculum. I was warned that I was taking a tough schedule... but hey, I was used to tough... I just never knew how tough tough can be in the real world. Well, pride certainly went before a fall and I almost flunked Math. But I just soldiered on. Did Calculus and Statistics in college and did kind

Rectangle Circle Brain Teaser
Image via Wikipedia

of mediocrely. At the beginning of my career, I worked for a leading econometrics forecasting company (using a lot of math) and realized that while I could hang with the best in the business, I was definitely not in their league. Somehow, they could put together these mathematical models and draw inferences much better than I could. So, does this mean I have an innate problem with math or does it mean that like a lot of people that I am good enough but definitely not a candidate for the Math Olympiads? How much of my mistakes arise from simply not being doing these exercises from some time and how much is innate? How much picking at yourself is good in order to give a therapist some feed back and how much is just "picking on" your self? I mean, we are all not perfect.

Anyhow, back to vision therapy. I also wore some funny glasses and looked at a piece of paper with rows of colored dots that was spinning on a turntable. I had to recreate the dots with colored pegs on a gridboard.

Finally, I played a game with one of the kids. Becky wanted to try out a new game. Unfortunately, I forget what it is called but it involved matching cards by matching their background color and number of dots on the dice. Jake and I have played other games before and we are getting competitive with each other! Fortunately for me, I was losing but I had to leave early before I officially lost.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Review of University Neuroeconomic Programs

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:49:00 PST

For any one interested in neuroeconomics, here's a list of leading programs:
https://files.nyu.edu/avs265/public/reviewofneuroeconomicprograms.html

Characteristics of Gifted Adults

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:57:00 PST

Found an interesting catalog of gifted traits including those specific to gifted women. This article is a bit of a compendium of other articles from the Gifted Resource Center and experts like Mary Rocamora

Assessment of First Round of Cellfield and Next Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:00:02 PST

Talked to Maude, my PT/OT, the other day and we went over what we accomplished in Cellfield and we hatched some plans for next year.

Cellfield has really helped a lot with my vision. I can see depth a lot better although I don't have a sense of space quite yet. When I look at a forest, I can see rows of trees whereas before I would see some trees and then a grey-brown blur. I see curbs on the road and sidewalks much better. I have a much wider field of vision and can see more of the whole road. My posture has changed and I don't have to hunch over a computer screen which is going to relieve a lot of my osteoarthritis in the neck.

Field of Vision Image via Wikipedia

Other things have changed as well. I have also started to be more sensitive to textures and want to explore more texture.

I think my hearing has improved slightly as well.
I could hear more lyrics and music seems more vibrant. I really enjoy music a lot so I upgraded my 1980's era stereo system so I could hear the music more. I am also planning on tuning the system to get even more enjoyment out of it.

Previously I told Maude that I was having some problems hearing consonants. Cellfield confirmed that I do have problems with some of the consonants that are located in the high frequency range. While doing Cellfield, I really tried to pay attention as the words were sounded. Cellfield sounds out the

Image via Wikipedia

words slowly so I have lots of time to guess. I tried to rely more on perception rather than thinking about what that word would have to be and noticed I have problems with f and h and th.

Maude has found a program that works on consonants. She would like to try it out on me on an experimental basis. She doesn't like giving her clients programs without some evaluation so I will be a guinea pig. I am going to go ahead and still get my hearing aide anyhow. When I am tired or stressed, my hearing abilities are diminished. This new program may work or it may not. But, maybe all things considered, it's a good idea to cover my bets and have the hearing aide around at least some of the time.

After we work on hearing, we will go back to vision and do another round of Cellfield. It is supposed to be more intense. Oh Joy. As if I didn't have enough fun knocking my little socks off the first round. But it does seem to help a lot.

Maude was quite pleased about my progress.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Flapping Like Loons: Thoughts on Organization

noreply@blogger.com (Traveller) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:21:07 PST

Well, Rome wasn't built in a day; nor was complete organization achieved as quickly as we wanted.

My husband gets his train pass from his company. So each month we await the ADP envelope containing the pass. Before we started getting organized, every once in a while, he would misplace the envelope and then ring out the Botswain's call: "All Hands on Deck!!!" "All Hands On Deck!!!" And we would both madly tear up our house in the hunt for the train pass. It's not an inexpensive pass and we don't get refunds if we lose it. So it behooves us to find it.

So, the other night, at midnight, Hubby declares the loss of the train pass and cries out for help. There is nothing worse than a grown man wailing, so I help him out. We start tearing up the joint looking for it. It is our loon dance. We start flapping around like crazed loony birds. We look high; We look low; We look far; and We look near. We interrogate each other. Hubby even goes through all the recycling and the regular garbage. No train pass. At 1:30 am, we call off the search. We will resume the next day.

We had thought all this organizing that we had been doing would end this. But no.

The next day, the train pass arrives in the mail. I stuck it up on the wall in front of his desk. I texted Hubby immediately and called him an Idiot... as only a loving wife can. I guess old habits die hard and he just wanted us to run around like chickens with our heads cut off.

When he came home, I made him dance the macarena in his Santa Boxer Shorts as a punishment. If he wants to make an idiot out of himself, he can do so without me. We both had a good laught.

Copyright © 2010-2011 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

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