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- Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Leo Angart runs workshops all over the world, helping people to regain their natural vision and throw away their glasses for good. He regularly encounters children whose eyesight is being adversely affected by their glasses or who don't really need glasses at all. In Magic Eyes: Vision Training for Children Leo shares his experience and explains what you can do to help transform your child's eyesight, eliminating the need for glasses. In Magic Eyes Leo Angart demystifies common eye conditions, explains the causes of these issues and suggests simple solutions you can try at home. These fun exercises can make children's eyes healthy and strong and eliminate the need for glasses. In fact with children it is actually quite easy to restore natural eyesight within a week or two. Magic Eyes also contains detailed explanations of, and exercises for: amblyopia (or lazy eye), anisometropia (when vision is different between the left and right eye), astigmatism (irregular shaping of the cornea), diplopia (double vision), hyperopia (far-sightedness), myopia (near-sightedness) and strabismus (turning in or out of the eye).
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Acknowledgments
First I wish to thank the pioneers of vision training. Most of all William H. Bates, M.D., who in the early 1900s realized that vision problems are functional and can therefore be improved with exercises. Another pioneer is Arthur M. Skeffington, M.D. who in 1928 co-founded the Optometric Extension Program. Skeffington believed that vision is a function of many parts including how we perceive what’s seen.
Without the achievements of the many kids in my workshops this book would not be possible. What works has emerged over 20 years of play with children in Magic Eyes workshops around the world.
Long ago I realized that many people had suffered vision problems that could, in most cases, easily have been corrected when they were children. For example, a man in his sixties told me that he could only read one word at a time. In the workshop for adults we discovered that his eyes were focusing 15 cm above the book he was trying to read. With the eye co-ordination exercise described in this book he was able to read again naturally. He told me that he wished we had met 50 years earlier. My dream is that all children will benefit from the tests and exercises in this book and grow up with “Magic Eyes.”
I also want to thank the many people who helped make this book possible. Eva Maria Spitzer who researched and checked everything, thank you Eva. Gökçen Eke who created the cute cartoons that illustrate this book. Wolfgang Gillessen for his support with all my books.
Finally I also want to thank the team at Crown House Publishing for bringing this book to you.
Leo Angart
Contents
1. Introduction
Magic Eyes and the eyesight of children are topics very close to my heart. For more than 18 years I have worked extensively with children all over the world. My primary work is the restoration of children’s eyesight by natural means – that is, without glasses, lenses, surgery or expensive therapy sessions.
Early on, I realized that I personally cannot restore someone else’s eyesight for them. It is something every individual has to do for themselves. However, with children it is actually easier, for a number of reasons. Primarily, children are already at a developmental stage where their bodies, minds and eyesight are in the process of change. If training is done in a simple way, then its purpose is simply the restoration of the natural path of development.
The first stage is to remove, or counteract, the cause of any visual problem. However, before you can embark on this, it is important to have a good understanding of the child’s condition. For instance, in order to be able to help their child, parents should be well-informed about the main causes of near-sight and the way that poor eye co-ordination can affect learning in a dysfunctional way.
In my travels I have met many wonderful kids and young people, but I have often been saddened when they present problems that could have been detected and corrected early on. For example, in one of my workshops, a young man realized why he had never been able to read for more than 30 minutes before it became too painful to carry on. He discovered that his point of convergence was an arm’s length in front of him. No wonder attempting to read anything closer than that was very stressful! After this situation was redressed, he exclaimed, with joy in his voice, “Now I can read a novel for pleasure!” His problem should have been detected in kindergarten or, at the very latest, in primary school; not 20 years later in my workshop.
Most professional eye-care practitioners have a different view of vision and the way that the eyes work. Their training usually does not include the notion that you can rehabilitate the visual system as easily as other systems in the body. However, in more recent years the concept of brain plasticity has become more popular. This modality takes for granted the ability of the brain to relearn and postulates that it is always taking in new information and adapting to changing environments.
This book is written as an attempt to help parents get involved in improving their children’s eyesight. I believe in the power of parents to make things happen. I have described various visual phenomena, as well as ways to detect them. And, most importantly, I have incorporated some simple exercises that parents can do with their child at home. I have also included references to scientific studies in order to broaden parents’ understanding.
It is my hope that mothers and fathers will use the information in this book to check whether their children have mastered the necessary visual skills for effective learning. If not, then they can initiate the exercises themselves and in most cases it will make a big difference to their children’s eyesight. Of course, professional help may be needed as well. If this is necessary, then parents will be much more knowledgeable about their child’s condition and the various treatment options available.
Vision Training is not rocket science. It is based on simple common-sense principles. Children are eager learners and will take to these exercises like ducks to water. My approach, as outlined in this book, differs from most optometric vision training which employs optics and various pieces of equipment. This generally involves regular sessions over several months. My approach goes much further and treats many more conditions, including myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, amblyopia, eye co-ordination and strabismus.
I like to take advantage of parental love! This training is something that parents and children can do together. In this setting, in the comfort of the family home, parents can keep increasing the number of exercises and thus get results fast. The brain learns very quickly. It takes only a few seconds to register a phobia but much longer to let go of it.
The physical element of the visual system is operated by muscles, so visual training resembles any other skill training. The more you practice, the better you perform. With children, the key is to keep them motivated by making it fun and exciting. Thankfully, kids usually get excited by their own progress and go for it full force.
This book is not an attempt to minimize or circumvent professional practices. There are limits to what parents can do on their own. The real purpose is to raise awareness about these issues and help to find solutions for affected children before they become labeled as deficient.
It is my dream that one day there will be dedicated Vision Training professionals with an eclectic approach who will take the best bits that work from all the varied disciplines available. All too often progress is limited or stalled because of commercial interests. I happen to think that helping a child to reach their full potential is priceless. What an achievement it can be to help an 8-year-old gain control of the way his eyes move, so he can read or play basketball. This will make a huge difference to the rest of this boy’s life. And, in the end, that is what makes life worthwhile.
2. How to Use This Book
This book contains a lot of information. The abundance of new words and concepts may make it a challenging read. My suggestion is that you start off by dipping into the section that drew you to buy the book in the first place.
For example, if your child is becoming near-sighted, then go to the section about myopia. Take the measurement as described and discover what kind of near-sight your child has. Then you can get going with the child on the exercises I describe.
On the other hand, if you do not know exactly what the problem is, then I suggest you start at the beginning. In this way, you will not only increase your knowledge about vision, but you will also gain an insight into how it relates to a child’s ability to learn. You may like to perform some of the tests and exercises described with your child as you go along. You can then eliminate many possible visual conditions by observing which tests your child can accomplish with ease.
Next, it is important to make sure that there are no visual efficiency issues, such as eye co-ordination, eye movement or focusing problems. This informs us whether the basic physical system is functioning as it should. For example, there should be no input problems (as described in Chapter 6 on visual efficiency). Fitting glasses does not do anything for these problems. The typical vision test performed in schools only covers about 5% of a child’s visual function.
This book is an attempt to share information that will enable you to understand your child’s problem better and point you in directions that will be helpful. It is beyond the scope of this book to provide specific tools and exercises in every case.
3. Anatomy of the Eye
The human eye is an anatomical masterpiece. The eye is about 24 mm in diameter and functions as the interface between the outside world and the inner world. The physical eye is responsible for capturing images from the outer world. It is similar to a video camera and, indeed, they have many things in common. However, the human eye is far superior to any camera built to date. For example, the human eye has much greater sensitivity to light. You can find your way in almost complete darkness as well as deal with bright sunlight on a beach. The video camera has a very limited range in comparison.
The eye muscles
There are six external muscles attached to each eye. These muscles work in pairs to enable you to move your eyes in all directions. Eye muscles are unique in their ability to move the eye very quickly and precisely to point it in the direction of what you want to observe. The muscles can also adjust in real time – for example, they allow you to track a tennis ball from one side of the court to the other.
The four rectus muscles are located around the eye. The one above the eye (superior rectus) is the muscle responsible for moving the eye upward. The lower rectus muscle (inferior rectus) is responsible for moving the eye downward. These two muscles work in tandem to enable your eyes to move up and down to any degree. Horizontal movements of the eyes are performed by the medial rectus and lateral rectus muscles located on each side of the eye. These muscles move the eyes across the horizontal line. Together, the four rectus muscles give the eye the capacity to move in all directions.
In addition, there is also a pair of muscles attached to the back of the eye. These are called the oblique muscles because they allow the eyes to move both toward and away from each other. This enables you to point your eyes as well as track objects moving toward and away from you. The upper muscle (superior oblique) is attached to the bone near the nose with a long tendon. This muscle is used when you cross your eyes toward your nose.
Your exterior eye muscles are also involved in adjusting the focus. In his pioneering research, William Bates, M.D. (1915) concluded that the oblique muscles focus by squeezing the eyeball and moving the retina into a position where the image is in perfect focus. He likened the function to that of a camera: when you want to focus it on something close-up, you move the lens forward. In the human eye the same principle is employed by squeezing the eyeball slightly to keep the image focused.
This action is mainly accomplished by the two oblique muscles. In myopia (near-sight), the back of the eye is permanently pushed out causing difficulty in focusing. With hyperopia (far-sight), the four rectus muscles are held very tightly causing the eyeball to become shorter. To give you an idea of the scale of these movements, each millimeter the eyeball is elongated is equivalent to approximately 3 diopters of myopia. With this degree of myopia, your vision would go from normal to being able to see clearly only up to 30 cm, approximately the normal reading distance. The physical changes that take place are minute, but they have huge consequences.
Inside the eye there are two circular muscles. One muscle determines the size of the iris and how much light enters the eye. The other muscle is circular in shape and is located around the lens.
The cornea
The clear part of the eye, the cornea, is responsible for about 75% of the focusing power of the eye. The greatest refractive effect is achieved at the interface between air and the tear film. This is why refractive surgery is possible. Shaving off even minute portions of the cornea has a major effect on the focusing power of the eye.
The cornea is about 0.5 mm thick at the center of the pupil and consists of several layers. The outer layer is the tear film, which nourishes the cornea as well as being part of the refractive element of the eye. You have probably noticed that blinking your eyes improves your ability to see. The physical surface of the cornea is called the epithelium, which consists of a protective layer of relatively hard surface cells. Their function is to protect the eye from damage. Extended wearing of contact lenses, especially hard lenses, eventually wears down the corneal epithelium and contact lenses can no longer be worn.
Just a few cells below the surface we have Bowman’s layer. This is a layer of collagen-like cells that help the cornea to keep its shape – it is like the stiffeners in your shirt collar. This never heals if there has been a surgical intervention. The largest part of the cornea is the stroma. This is where laser surgery is performed: part of the stroma layer is blasted away, thinning the cornea so that the refractive power alters. Since there are no blood vessels in the cornea, it takes as much as six months to heal from surgery. It also leads to unavoidable weakening of the cornea.
Optical dimensions of the eye
This section is for those of you who are interested in the scientific aspects of the eye’s optical dimensions. I am amazed that the eye is so small and that there are such huge differences in dioptric power between the cornea and the lens.
The lens
While the cornea provides most of the optical power of the eye, the lens is an important part of the optical system. The lens is about 10 mm in diameter and consists of crystalline cells that are completely transparent so light can shine through them.
The lens is suspended in space by tiny fibers called zonules. Because of its high water content, the lens is very flexible and the pull of the zonules alters the shape of the lens. When the ciliary ring muscle is relaxed, the zonules are tightened and the lens becomes flatter, thus decreasing its focusing power. When the ciliary muscle is contracted, the zonules are relaxed and the lens bulges out, thus increasing its focal power. When the ciliary muscle is relaxed the eye is said to have “accommodated.”
In vision tests, the drug atropine is sometimes used to paralyze the ciliary muscle. The rationale is that when ciliary muscle activity is eliminated you will get the “true” visual status. Some optometrists believe that this is the only valid test. Applying the same logic, you might wonder why your spine is not paralyzed when its height is measured to eliminate the possibility that you will stretch up and become taller!
The crystalline cells of the lens remain the same throughout our lives. Each year a new layer grows, like an onion. Between the ages of 20 and 80 the lens will have doubled in thickness. The lens has no blood vessels and it is nourished only by the aqueous humor which is continuously secreted from the ciliary body. Vitamin C is the most important supplement for the lens. The lens has the highest concentration of vitamin C in the entire body. Oxidation damage by free radicals can cause the crystalline cells to become opaque – a condition known as cataracts. Since the lens is only a small part of the optical system of the eye, you can still see even if your lens has been removed. Such a loss will amount to approximately 10% loss of visual acuity (or two lines on the eye-chart). Therefore, you could still be driving legally even without lenses in your eyes. The legal limit for driving is 20/40 visual acuity.
The retina
The retina is a paper-thin layer at the back of the eye which contains light-sensitive cells. If the retina is damaged then there will be permanent loss of vision. The most serious retina problems are macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, both of which are a form of deterioration of the integrity of the retina. Another problem is retinal detachment, which occurs in people with a high degree of myopia.
Photosensitive cells
There are two kinds of photosensitive cells in the eyes: rod cells, which operate under dim light conditions (referred to as scotopic vision) and cone cells, which give you sharp vision and color perception.
Rod cells are the most numerous – there are about 120 million. They are highly sensitive to low light and motion. Rod cells do not detect color and their visual acuity is about 20/200. Cone cells are used for sharp focus and color perception. The cone cells are concentrated in the central fovea located directly behind the iris and the other optical parts of the eye. Cone cell perception is referred to as photopic vision.
There are three types of cone cell, each sensitive to a specific range of light frequencies. The photo-pigment erythrolabe is sensitive to long-wave red light, chlorolabe is sensitive to mid-range green light and cyanolabe is sensitive to short-wave blue light. The three primary colors, red, green and blue, enable you to see all the colors in the spectrum. Blending the three basic colors can produce every hue imaginable. There are about 6,000,000 cone cells in each eye, with the highest density situated in the central fovea. Interestingly, there are no blue sensitive cone cells in the fovea. Their peak density lies just outside the central fovea. This accounts for the inability to see very small blue objects when they are centrally fixated.
Rod cells contain the photo-sensitive pigment rhodopsin or visual purple. Named after its appearance, the rod cell consists of about 1,000 tiny disks, each one holding about 10,000 molecules of rhodopsin. Each molecule is capable of capturing one photon of light. The huge number of rhodopsin molecules means there is tremendous capacity for capturing light. When light falls on a rod cell, the rhodopsin becomes bleached. Only one quanta of light (the minimum amount of energy that can be carried in an electromagnetic wave) is required to bleach a molecule of rhodopsin. In fact, the scotopic spectral sensitivity of the eye corresponds to the properties of rhodopsin.
The macula
The retina has a central area, directly behind the cornea and lens, called the macula. At the center of the macula is the fovea. Vision and color perception are perfectly clear in this part of the eye. In the fovea, the photoreceptors have the densest concentration of light-sensitive cone cells, approximately 150,000 per square millimeter. These cells are also connected to a very large area of the visual cortex, which enables us to see clearly.
The macula is covered with a yellow pigment consisting of the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin. Traditionally it was believed that the yellow pigment aided visual resolution by filtering out the shorter blue light wavelength. This filtration effect is now considered to be a protection against blue light damage and, indirectly, a way of squelching free radical oxidation. Incidentally, the distribution of zeaxanthin seems to parallel that of cone cell photoreceptors.
The best dietary sources of carotenoids are dark-green leafy vegetables and yellow and red fruits. Carrots are the best source of beta-carotene and tomatoes supply lycopene. Zeaxanthin is the dominant carotenoid in vegetables such as orange peppers and sweetcorn, while most other vegetables, such as cabbage, spinach and watercress, are rich in lutein and beta-carotene.
4. Visual Development
The development of the visual system is partly “hard wired” and follows molecular cues. Other parts of the system develop from spontaneous visual stimuli. This means that the visual experiences of very young children influence their neural structures.
This reliance on optical experience can make the visual system vulnerable; if the environment is less than optimal, problems may develop. For instance, if children spend a lot of time involved in near-type visual activities, like playing video games, reading and schoolwork, we can end up with a predominantly near-sighted population. This is evident in some Asian countries, where up to 80% of high school students are near-sighted. In Singapore, 20% of 7-year-olds are near-sighted and 70% of college students are near-sighted (Seet et al., 2001). The Taiwan Health Ministry published a survey in 2006 showing that 85% of children at age 17 had near-sight.1
At birth most children are far-sighted by +2 to +3 diopters. Through a process called emmetropization, the eye undergoes a change in shape and size to become emmetropic (vision becoming normal) at around the age of 10. So, by this age the child should have perfect vision. If this development is disturbed, the eyeball may become too long (myopia, or near-sight) or too short (hyperopia, or far-sight).
At birth the eyeball is about 17 mm in diameter and grows about 0.016 mm a week. This growth mostly involves the back of the eyeball becoming longer. The lens inside the eye also increases in diameter. The eye grows about 1 mm every year until age 5, when the eyeball reaches around 21 mm in depth. The growth then slows down. At age 13, the eye has reached its full adult size of 24 mm. Children’s eyes are especially sensitive to their visual environment from the ages of 6 to 14. In this period there is a tendency toward the rapid progression of myopia.
