This growing subspecialty of optometry uses vision therapy – eye exercises performed in the doctor’s office and at home – to go beyond the usual concerns of vision care and treat “reading problems, learning problems, spelling problems, attention problems, hyperactivity, and coordination problems,” according to Visionandlearning.org, a behavioral optometry Web site. It can also treat a child who experiences “trouble in sports,” who “frustrates easily,” displays “poor motivation,” and “does not work well on his/her own.”

How is this possible?

Behavioral optometrists believe that these kinds of behaviors, as well as poor performance during visual tasks, are a sign of nonoptimal visual skills. According to Dr. Stanley Appelbaum, author of Eye Power: A Cutting-edge Report on Vision Therapy, this unique approach to understanding the role of the eyes in thinking and learning involves “how eyes work together and move together and process information and store information and do something with the information.”

Therefore, so-called behavioral problems can be tackled from the standpoint of getting the eyes and brain to work together better.

Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is a good example. As a child, he did not do well in school and was a poor athlete. But his grandfather began to use vision drills, such as asking his grandson to balance on a board while trying to track a dot, or walk on a wood rail while focusing on an object. This vision training was designed to improve perception, hand-eye coordination, reflexes, focus, and more; Fitzgerald credits it for his successes, both on and off the field.

Appelbaum himself suffered from chronic headaches as a child, and thus hated to read. In optometry school he discovered he had “convergence insufficiency,” a condition characterized by eyes that don’t turn in together, affecting close work such as reading. He was treated with eye exercises, and his headaches disappeared. Now he loves to read.

According to the American Optometric Association, “Studies indicate that 60 percent of children identified as ‘problem learners’ actually suffer from undetected vision problems and in some cases have been inaccurately diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.”

And, as a recent New York Times article noted, “Many behavioral optometrists say that 20 to 25 percent of children overall have vision problems that can impede their ability to reach their potential. These problems commonly include: poor eye-movement control or ‘tracking issues,’ problems with accommodation (when the eyes don’t focus well together or sustain focus at various distances), convergence insufficiency, difficulties sustaining visual attention, poor visual-motor integration (bad hand-eye coordination), weak visual form perception (the ability to reproduce and generalize shapes) and poor visual memory.”

If behavioral optometry can help even a fraction of these kids reach their potential – and there is experiential evidence that it can – then this exciting new field has the potential to revolutionize the lives of millions. It’s exciting to know that you are part of this change.

The macula is the part of the retina we use for reading, driving, watching television, and fine work: in short, it is the region of maximum visual acuity. Some half-million new cases of AMD are diagnosed each year.

Vision loss in AMD is due to the irreversible death of photoreceptors and/or the invasion of leaky, unwanted blood vessels into the retina. Vision loss usually occurs gradually and typically affects both eyes at different rates.

How do you know if you have AMD?

If straight lines look wavy, or if you notice shadowy areas or dark or empty spots in your central vision, you may be experiencing early signs of the disease. At advanced stages, even seeing the face of a loved one becomes impossible.

Seeing Is Believing

Adam Hahn is a painter in London, England, whose grandmother had AMD. Although she led a rich, active life, when she passed away, Adam realized he never actually knew what she saw as her condition worsened. He was determined to find out.

He interviewed people with AMD, asking them to describe how they saw themselves with their partial vision. He then painted their portraits accordingly. The result is an astounding collection of wholly or partially blurred paintings, in blacks, whites, and grays, perhaps to indicate the deterioration of color vision that many people with AMD also experience.

Visit this link on YouTube for a look at some of these portraits, as well as an interview with Adam and some of those who participated in this groundbreaking project.

Preventing AMD

Here are three important steps you can take to guard against developing AMD.

1. Consume the right fats. The omega-3 essential fatty acid known as DHA, found in salmon, tuna (bluefin tuna has up to five times more DHA than other types of tuna), mackerel, sardines, shellfish, and herring, is intimately involved with eye health. Several epidemiologic studies have indicated that omega 3 oils may reduce the risk for AMD.

A study published in the August 2001 issue of Archives of Ophthalmology recommended avoiding highly processed snack foods and consuming two or more servings of fish high in omega-3 fatty acids per week to lower the risk of developing AMD. Nuts also provide healthy fats: eating one serving a day of any type of nut, according to AgingEye Times, reduces the risk of progression of AMD by 40%.

2. Supplement with lutein and zeaxanthin. The carotenes lutein and zeaxanthin are vital to vision because they actually form the macular pigment region in your eye. They have been shown to increase the size/thickness of this region when supplemented, offering substantial protection against vision loss and blindness.

In 2004 the North Chicago VA Medical Center announced that lutein has been shown to not only help prevent, but also to actually reverse, symptoms of AMD. According to the center, “The LAST study (Lutein Antioxidant Supplementation Trial) is the first trial to record actual improvement in several key visual functions among patients with AMD.”

Foods that contain these nutrients include kale, spinach, collard greens, eggs, turnip greens, broccoli, zucchini, romaine lettuce, corn, and peas. A supplement of 20 mg of lutein and 6-10 mg of zeaxanthin per day has been proven to increase macular pigment health.

In addition to being antioxidants, lutein and zeaxanthin may help protect against photodamage of the retina by filtering out blue light, which can damage the retina over time. They may also protect the blood vessels that supply the macular region.

3. Quit smoking. Smoking is a powerful risk factor for loss of vision with AMD. In fact, one study showed that smoking more than doubles the risk of AMD, possibly by reducing serum antioxidant levels and changing blood flow to the eyes.

But it’s never too late to benefit from quitting: a 2010 UCLA study found that even after age 80, smoking continues to increase the risk for AMD; therefore, researchers concluded that quitting smoking even late in life may reduce your risk of developing AMD.

According to All About Vision, more than 80 percent of what a child learns in school is presented visually, so following good vision practices for your kids can make a huge difference in their academic performance.

Warning Signs

First and foremost, you need to pay attention to the signs that your child may have a vision impairment.

A national survey, reported by U.S. News & World Report, shows that more than 20 percent of kids aged 12 to 17 have trouble seeing the classroom chalkboard. And about 25 percent of children aged 6 to 11 have a vision impairment strong enough for them to wear prescription glasses. But more than 66 percent of kids under the age of 6 have never had their eyes examined by an eye doctor, the survey found. And little kids don’t know how to tell you they’re having problems seeing; they just squint or sit right up in front of the TV.

These last two signs – along with frequent eye rubbing, tilting the head to see better, excessive tearing, light sensitivity, using a finger to follow along while reading, complaining of headaches or tired eyes, and closing one eye to read, watch TV, or see better – could indicate that your child has a vision problem.

If your child exhibits the above signs, schedule an appointment with your eye doctor.

Vision Screening: How and When

But don’t wait until something goes wrong to see the eye doctor. And don’t rely on the school nurse or your pediatrician to monitor your child’s vision, as some pediatricians don’t perform vision screenings, and school screenings are designed to alert parents to the possibility of a visual problem, not take the place of a visit to an expert eye care practitioner.

Even if your child exhibits no symptoms of visual problems, he or she should have an eye exam by the age of 6 months, then again at age 3, according to the American Optometric Association. Having a complete eye exam before your child enters school allows for enough time to catch and correct any problems while the visual system is developing.

Healthy Habits

Some other healthy vision habits to instill in kids are getting them used to wearing sunglasses. They need sun protection just as much as adults do – maybe even more, since they (hopefully) spend more time playing outdoors in direct sunlight. Which leads to what may be the biggest kid problem of our modern age: getting them away from the TV, computer, and video games.

Yes, they may protest at first, but setting reasonable limits on indoor activities like these can not only help their physical development (and help prevent such pervasive modern diseases as childhood diabetes, which can lead to serious vision problems, even blindness), but also their vision.

Though heredity seems to play a significant role in the development of myopia in childhood, All About Vision notes that some research suggests eye strain – specifically computer eye strain – may also be involved. And as a Rebuild Your Vision subscriber, you know all about near-point stress: to see clearly up close, the eye has to make an effort to focus.

Some researchers think that fatigue caused by excessive focusing can lead to changes within the eye that cause myopia. And experts agree that focusing on images on a computer screen causes greater eye fatigue than reading print in a book or magazine. So have your child follow the same computer-use rules that Rebuild Your Vision has taught you, particularly the 10-10-10 rule: every 10 minutes your child should take his or her eyes off the computer and look at an object at least 10 feet away for at least 10 seconds.

And when you finally do get them outside, remember to provide protective eyewear for sports activities.

Prevent Blindness America estimates that about 40,000 sports-related eye injuries each year in the U.S. are severe enough to require emergency room care – 90 percent of these injuries could easily be prevented by wearing protective eyewear.

Finally, we at Rebuild Your Vision believe strongly in “feeding your eyes”; it has been proven over and over that good nutrition leads to healthy vision. And what better way to set your child on the right visual path (as well as a path of allover health) than getting them used to a nutritious diet at an early age? While you may have to come up with some creative ways to sneak fruits and veggies into their meals (see Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook, Deceptively Delicious, for tips and recipes), when your child brings home a good report card, it’ll all be worth it.

Here’s a rundown of the 7 facts you should know about this condition:

1. Cataract extractions are the most common surgical procedure in the United States: more than 2 million are performed each year. The name comes from the Greek word kataraktēs, meaning “waterfall.” The Greeks and Romans thought cataracts were formed by evil liquids that flowed like a waterfall into the eye. A papyrus dating to 1,500 BCE describes what was probably a cataract under the phrase “the mounting of water in the eye.”

2. A cataract is a clouding of the eye’s lens, which is normally clear. A healthy lens allows light to pass through to the back of the eye, so that the patient can see well-defined images. A cataract scatters the light as it passes through the lens, preventing a sharply defined image from reaching the retina. As a result, your vision becomes blurred, like looking through a fogged-up window. Some cataracts are congenital, but most are caused by aging.

3. These changes in your vision may be signs of cataract:

1. Having blurred or double vision, ghost images, or a “film” over the eyes
2. Worsening night vision
3. Difficulty seeing while reading or performing other close-up work under standard lighting conditions, or sensitivity to light and glare
4. Frequent changes in vision prescriptions

4. There are several factors that we cannot control that may increase the risk of developing cataracts: age, family history, and ethnicity (African Americans have a higher risk for developing and becoming blind from cataracts). Some studies also suggest that women may be at a slightly higher risk than men.

5. Risk factors for cataracts that we can control include not smoking, reducing exposure to sunlight by wearing UVA/UVB protective sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats, controlling other diseases such as diabetes, and eating a healthy diet.

6. According to a Tufts University study, diet can have a significant effect on cataract development: “Those who consumed less than 1.5 servings of fruit or fruit juice per day or less than two servings of vegetables or vegetable juice were three and a half times more likely to have cataracts.” Cataracts were 5.6 times more prevalent among those with the lowest levels of carotenoid intake. Carotenoids are abundant in dark-green leafy vegetables, as well as orange and red fruits and vegetables, such as tomatoes, peaches, squash, and, of course, carrots.

7. According to All About Vision, some experts advise that, even with a healthy diet, in order to fight cataracts it is prudent to consider adding supplements. In particular, research suggests that supplementation with N-acetyl and L-cysteine may play a role in preventing cataracts or slowing their progression.

How significantly?

The data shows that the incidence of myopia in Americans ages 12 to 54 is up from 25 percent in the 1970s to 41 percent this decade. That’s an increase of 66 PERCENT!

What is nearsightedness?

If you are part of the nearsighted nation, your eyes focus incorrectly, making distant objects appear blurred. As a result, someone with myopia tends to squint when viewing faraway objects. This gesture is the basis of the word “myopia,” which comes from two Greek words: myein, meaning “shut,” and ops, meaning “eye.”

What causes nearsightedness?

In the past, if you asked your doctor or ophthalmologist what caused nearsightedness, almost certainly he or she would’ve responded, “Genetics.” While it’s true that nearsightedness runs in families, this recent study — covered by everyone from Good Morning America to the New York Times — seems to suggest that environmental factors play a significant cause.

When interviewing Dr. Richard Besser, senior health and medical editor for ABC News, Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos pointed out that last year alone, there were 110 BILLION text messages sent, double the amount of the previous year.

The dates of the study correspond almost perfectly with the rise in near-point stress in American life, as we spend more and more of our time surfing the Web, texting on cell phones, watching TV, and playing video games. As the Times put it, “Higher levels of education are often associated with nearsightedness, and people are more likely to have jobs that involve focusing on nearby objects, believed to be a leading cause of the condition.”

A dramatic effect on children

While the rise in nearsightedness is certainly alarming for the nation as a whole, it is even more so in the case of children. Prevent Blindness America says, “Since so much of a child’s learning is done visually, healthy vision is critical to success in the classroom.”

The problem is that, although the CDC estimates there are 12.1 million American school-age children with vision problems, only one in three receives eye care before the age of 6. Dr. Roy Chuck, chairman of ophthalmology at Montefoire Medical Center in New York, notes that “nearsighted work can really affect the development of young eyes. If that is exclusively the kind of work that you are doing, it is equally important to be outside playing, stimulating your far vision.”

The National Eye Institute plans to dedicate $10 million dollars to future studies, in order to figure out what caused the rise in myopia. But in the meantime, we here at Rebuild Your Vision will be getting regular eye exams, for ourselves and our children; following our solid program of eye exercises; eating a nutritious diet and supplementing with the Ocu-Plus Formula; and trading the cell phone, computer, and TV, at least once in a while, for a romp in the great outdoors with our families.

“But I don’t practice yoga!” we hear you saying.

Our response: As a member of the Rebuild Your Vision program, you’re aware that regular performance of your eye exercises has myriad health benefits, right? Well, it might interest you to know that eye exercises have been an important component of yoga for as long as it’s been practiced — from around 3,000 B.C., to be exact.

According to the website Holistic Online, yoga practitioners attach special importance to eye exercises, for two reasons:

1. A lot of eye problems in later life are due to a loss of tone in the eye muscles. [Eye] exercises tone the eye muscles up and keep them elastic.
2. Any eye tension present will tend to produce a general feeling of tension, due to the eye’s connection to the brain via the optic nerve. The eye exercises will reduce tension in the eye muscles, as well as reduce general tension.

Even former Beatle Paul McCartney has gotten in on the fun; he released his own eye yoga video, claiming the exercises have helped him retain his 20/20 vision. McCartney says, “When I was in India there was a guy at one of the hotels who offered to teach me eye yoga exercises. He told me eyes are muscles just like any other, and they need exercise to keep them working properly. Spending so much time at computers or the TV or reading books, we are only using one set of muscles in our eyes. The yoga gives a workout to the other ones. It is really good for your eyes and keeps them in shape.”

While there are many eye asanas (as exercises are called in yogic practice), several well-known asanas are close cousins of exercises you are already familiar with from the Rebuild Your Vision program. Take this one, for example, called “palming”:

Sitting on your mat, draw up your knees, keeping your feet on the floor and slightly apart. Now briskly rub your palms to charge them with electricity and place the cupped palms over your closed eyes. The fingers of the right hand should be crossed over the fingers of the left hand on the forehead. The elbows should rest on your raised knees and the neck should be kept straight. Don’t bend your head. Do deep breathing while palming your eyes.

Sound familiar?

The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit and means “to join or yoke together,” as it brings the body and mind together into one harmonious experience. Although many people think that yoga is just stretching, yoga is really about creating balance in the body, and its benefits go beyond increased flexibility, strength, blood circulation, muscle tone, and serenity. Aetna’s InteliHealth website notes that:

Yoga has been shown to reduce heart rate and blood pressure, increase lung capacity, increase the amount of time you can hold your breath, improve muscle relaxation and body composition, cause weight loss and increase overall physical endurance. Yoga may affect levels of brain or blood chemicals, including monoamines, melatonin, dopamine, stress hormones (cortisol) and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid). Changes in mental functions such as attention, cognition, processing of sensory information and visual perception have been described in some research studies in humans.

With so much to be gained, we won’t call it “cheating” if you resolve to take your Rebuild Your Vision practice to the next level. After all, what’s good enough for 15.8 million people (and Sir Paul McCartney) is good enough for us.

You can even download the full text of the complete works of Shakespeare – for free. If that sounds better to you than lugging a heavy, dusty tome around, you’re in good company.

But is reading War and Peace on an inches-long, backlit screen really a good idea? As millions of us migrated from the page to the phone, will our vision suffer?

Yes, and it’s already happening, says Dr. Karen Bassichis Saland, a Dallas ophthalmologist. About a quarter of her patients suffer eyestrain from staring at digital screens. She expects that percentage to increase as smart phones become increasingly popular.

“Right now it’s not talked about much,” said Saland in an article in the Dallas Morning News. “But when people stare at anything too long they forget to blink, which means they don’t moisten their eyes. That leads to dry eye, which, if unchecked, can impair vision. Dry eye can also cause eyestrain.”

Trying to read on tiny smart-phone screens can cause the same symptoms as reading on bigger laptop, iPad, Kindle and desktop screens: headaches; focusing difficulties; burning, aching, dry, and/or tired eyes; double vision; blurred vision; and light sensitivity.

And these symptoms may be exacerbated by the fact that, because the phones are backlit and portable, people tend to use them in places they wouldn’t normally read, such as darkened movie theaters or dimly lit bars and restaurants.

The problem with this is glare. Whereas most of us know we should use an overhead light to minimize glare on our home and work computers, we don’t think twice about reading on our smart phones in the dark.

The solution: Don’t use your phone to read in any place you wouldn’t normally read a book.

More solutions for using your smart phone smartly:

• On a Kindle, iPad or computer, you can increase the font size to make reading easier. For smart phones, a device called a digital magnifier allows you to magnify the text on the page to an easy-to-see level. There are many apps available (for example, Windows Mobile Magnifier), which vary based on your device.
• It may sound like common sense, and it is: Hold your phone some inches away from your face instead of reading it with your head tipped down to your lap. (This will not only save your vision, but also your neck.) 
• Women, take note: Apply artificial tears if you’re looking at the screen for more than 30 minutes at a time. Men should do this as well, but, according to Dr. Antoinette Dumalo, vice president of the British Columbia Association of Optometrists, women are more prone to dry eyes than men. “It has been speculated that the reason women are more prone … is that hormones play a part in tear production, so perhaps hormonal changes that occur in perimenopause and menopause explain why older women are more susceptible.”
• Look for fonts developed especially for handheld devices, such as Microsoft Reader’s Frutiger Linotype and ClearType, a setting that smoothes the edges of screen fonts to make text more readable.
• Follow the 10-10-10 Rule: Take a break every 10 minutes and look at an object at least 10 feet away for 10 seconds.

While phone-induced eyestrain is not as bad as what happened to a 26-year-old French security guard – who was injured when his iPhone screen suddenly exploded, sending shards of glass up in the air – it’s certainly something we need to be aware of.

Next time you’re tempted to download a book onto your smart phone, you might want to visit an old-fashioned bookstore or read it on your iPad or Kindle instead.

Failing that, at least remember to blink!

The good news is, you’re not alone, according to U.S. News & World Report. “The unavoidable reality, however, is that driving skills deteriorate as we age … and by 2030, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by AAA, one in four drivers will be age 65 or older.”

The bad news, however, is that many states are beginning to revamp their vision requirements for older drivers in advance of the coming “gray wave” of Baby Boomers.

Currently, driving regulations are decided on a state-by-state basis. Although the standard vision requirement for most states is 20/40 in at least one eye with or without eyeglasses, the crucial variable of how often that measurement is updated with the Department of Motor Vehicles is, well, all over the map. Some examples:

• Arizona issues a lifetime license up to age 65, but applicants must come into a license office every 12 years to apply for a duplicate license and have their vision rechecked.

• In Florida (where the standard vision requirement is only 20/70 in at least one eye with or without eyeglasses, presumably because of that state’s large elderly population), applicants may renew by mail twice if they have a clean driving record and may not undergo vision screening for a period of 18 years.

• In Iowa, initial and renewal drivers must take and pass a vision test to be licensed. The renewal cycle is every 4 years, up to age 70, when the renewal cycle is reduced to 2 years.

• In Vermont, only upon initial application for a driver’s license (but not upon renewal) must a vision test be given.

Yet the new reality of not only a growing senior population, but also the stuttering economy, which is forcing many to put off retirement and keep working into their 70s, is forcing states to rethink the rules.

USA Today reports that “California is analyzing results of a pilot project in which drivers who failed an initial written or vision test were required to take additional tests, sometimes including an eye exam and a road test.”

Further, “Maryland state law allows police, doctors, and residents, including relatives, to refer potentially unfit drivers to the Motor Vehicle Administration’s Medical Advisory Board. Police refer about 700 people annually; about 60% of them are drivers over age 65.”

In Maine, the interval between license renewals was shortened from six years to four years after age 62 and a vision check is required with each renewal. And a 2004 Florida law requiring that older drivers pass a vision test before getting their license renewed has helped cut the death rate among drivers 80 and older by 17%.

Of course, knowing when to give up driving is a sticky issue. TheBangor Daily News notes that “the big difference between the elderly and the rest of the population is that the elderly often do not realize their driving skills are deteriorating.”

AAA has designed a program, “Roadwise Review: A Tool to Help Seniors Drive Safely Longer,” that measures eight physical and mental abilities shown to be the strongest predictors of crash risk among older drivers and provides feedback to guide the user’s decision about their ability to drive safely.

Of those eight, half relate to vision, including High-Contrast Visual Acuity, needed to identify pavement markings, as well as detect many types of hazards in or near the road, and Low-Contrast Visual Acuity, which is vital for driving in low-visibility conditions such as dusk, rain, or fog.

So the next time you’re too tired to do your Rebuild Your Vision exercises or you’re debating about whether to include your Ocu-Plus Formula vitamins in your food budget, think about your aging eyes and remember, driving is not a right, it’s a privilege.

Across the globe, women are more likely to suffer blindness and vision loss. Of the common eye diseases, dry eye syndrome is two to three times more common in women than in men at any age because of differences in hormones.

Autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, and certain forms of cataract are more prevalent in women than in men. (More than half of Americans age 65 and older have a cataract, but for unknown reasons, women are at a higher risk of getting the cortical form of cataract.)

These risks, as well as age-related afflictions such as macular degeneration, increase with age, affecting women more often because women tend to live longer. In developing countries, infectious diseases such as trachoma are more prevalent in women, perhaps because in those regions, women have less access to medical care than men.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the Mayo Clinic ophthalmology department found that sleep deprivation can lead to blurred vision and eye discomfort; if those conditions are allowed to persist, in chronic stages they can bring about major vision problems, such as glaucoma, the second most common cause of blindness. While men as well as women suffer from sleep deprivation, Health Day News reports that women are in a category of their own.

Dr. Meir Kryger, director of the Sleep Disorder Clinic at St. Boniface Hospital Research Center at the University of Manitoba, notes that, “There are many sleep problems that men don’t ever have, like the sleepiness of pregnancy, waking up for breast-feeding, and hot flashes. Further, the most common sleep problem is insomnia, and in every single age group beginning at adolescence, women are two times more likely to have insomnia than are men.”

To help protect your vision and keep your eyes healthy, Kaiser Permanente recommends the following:

• Do not smoke
• Wear a hat or sunglasses when you are in the sun
• Avoid sunlamps and tanning booths
• Maintain a healthy diet, including lots of green vegetables
• Limit alcoholic drinks
• Keep diabetes under control

a. Wisps of cloud moving across the sky
b. Air-filled mattresses for summertime fun on the lake
c. Insects that have accidentally fallen into your lemonade
d. None of the above

If you chose “d,” then you are correct.

If you’ve ever noticed small specks or shadowy shapes moving in your field of vision, then yes, you have seen what are commonly called “floaters.” Floaters are not optical illusions, but rather, tiny bits of gel that occur within the eye itself.

They can appear in many forms, such as dots, lines, particles, strands, or webs, and because they are inside your eye, they move with your eyes when you look at them (thus the name floaters).

Floaters follow eye movements, such as blinking, and stop a few seconds after the eyes cease moving. They are most apparent when you are looking at a plain background: for example, a blank wall or blue sky. People may experience one or several floaters in one eye or both. Floaters are not the same as the spots you see after looking at intense light, such as from a camera flash.

What causes floaters?

Inside your eye, there is a clear, gel-like fluid called the vitreous. As you age, the vitreous begins to liquefy and contract. Some of the gel in your vitreous may form clumps or strands inside the eye. Small flecks of protein or other material that were trapped in the vitreous when your eye was formed can also cause floaters.

The floaters you see are not the clumps or strands themselves, but actually the shadows these cast on the retina, the light-sensitive part of the eye. The retina then sends visual signals to the brain, resulting in an image.

Floaters may also result from eye surgery, eye disease, or crystal-like deposits that form in the vitreous.

If I have floaters, should I be worried?

Floaters are a natural part of the eye’s aging process. Most spots and floaters in the eye, although annoying, are harmless. Many will fade over time and become less bothersome.

However, the sudden appearance of a significant number of floaters, especially if they are accompanied by flashes of light, could indicate a detached retina or other serious vision problem, such as eye inflammation, high blood pressure, or hemorrhaging caused by diabetes. See your doctor if you are experiencing light flashes.

Is there a “cure” for floaters?

There are no medications available that are effective in treating most floaters, nor will your eye exercises help, as floaters are not caused by near-point or other muscular stress. People with floaters due to inflammatory eye diseases may be helped by medicines to treat the inflammation; however, the floaters may remain after the treatment. Surgery to remove floaters is rare and only suggested for very severe cases.

Besides ignoring them, one way to deal with floaters is to move your eye around when one appears in your field of vision. This causes the fluid inside your eye to shift and allows the floater to move out of the way. Looking up and down may be more helpful for moving floaters than looking side to side.