For those that have players with Concussions. There are many thoughts on how to help, here is my journey.
John Wilson President SMGHA
Speaking for myself I had concussions from Refing for many years. Also 2 of my daughters that Ref had them. My eldest missed 1 month of Grade 12.
I tried many things over the years. I went to a Chiropractor and he said if he couldn’t help me than he would refer me.
He ended up sending me to an Eye Doctor in Uxbridge. Dr. Vi Tu Banh. A few years ago I went to him and he had me walk in place and after a few steps I fell in to the wall, as I was walking on the outside edge of my feet.. I put on these Prism glasses and I was walking flat footed for the first time in years. It was the wildest experience.
The doctor said a Concussion shifts your eye midpoint focus, for me it was down and to the right a few inches. So my eyes were naturally pointing in the wrong spot and I would be trying to shift my focus back to the middle where I thought it should be, So of course you end up with a headache, dizzy if you spend all day fighting where to focus. He has done quite a bit of extra training on this as it is a passion of his. He had a 70 year old lady who had concussions her whole life from being thrown from a horse in her teens. She was cured after a couple of years.
It took me 2 years but I am now back to wearing normal glasses with no concussion symptoms. My 2 daughters it took only 6 months for them. But they are tons younger and recover faster.
It is certainly worth a visit. He doesnt have anything on his website about it. But he has successfully treated 600 patients with this approach. Again this is just one approach to treatment and you need to select what is right for you.
Another website that talks about the benefit from Prism glasses.
Prisms work by deviating the path of light. It is often used for four different reasons.
- Injury to the nerves that are responsible for controlling eye muscles can be impacted during head injury. This can cause muscle imbalance, leading to an eye being deviated inwards, outwards, upwards, or downwards. A prism can be used to compensate for these misalignments. The placement of the prism allows the light to be deviated and fall onto the retina in such a way that both eyes receive the appropriate image of the object they would have otherwise seen if it were not for misalignment. Therefore, the eye muscles are no longer straining to correct the skewed vision.
- Head injury can also impact convergence and divergence ability, leading to a myriad of symptoms. A prism can be used in these instances to reduce the demand to either converge or diverge, and therefore enhance performance. For example, in convergence insufficiency, there is difficulty with ability to converge adequately at near. A prism in this case can be used to reduce the demand of converging at near, therefore improving ability to complete near tasks (i.e., tasks you do that require to look nearby) – such as reading or writing – and reduce associated symptoms.
- Head injury can impact our ability to process visual space and can often lead to what is known as visual collapse. In a previous article, we had discussed the focal and ambient processes of vision. Due to sensory overload, our visual system may have not process both the focal and ambient systems as per usual. Prisms can be used in these cases to reduce visual collapse, improving peripheral awareness, and therefore increase interaction between the focal and ambient processes of vision.
- Head injury can also cause a visual midline shift, a concept that we discussed in our article titled Post-Concussion Vision Syndrome. Prism can be used for these patients to improve their sense of position in space, allowing for improved gait and perception of their visual environment.