MAKE AN EYE EXAM PART OF YOUR CHECK UP

FACT: Your eyes and vision are important indicators of your overall health.

Blogger Judith Potts writes in the UK Daily Telegraph [link] that eye tests are as essential as blood pressure checks and other health assessments. Eye tests can reveal more then most people think. The eye is a useful organ to look at for signs both not only signs of eye disease, but also for diseases elsewhere in the body.

Researchers at London’s Institute of Ophthalmology have discovered that changes in the retina may reveal the presence of Parkinson’s. These changes are often earlier warnings than the onset of muscle stiffness and tremors.

Dr. Susan Blakeney, a clinical adviser at the institute said about the study:

“This is exciting news. Parkinson’s affects one in 500 people, so it would be great for optometrists to be able to play a part in its early diagnosis.

The eye is the only transparent part of the body and the retina is an extension of the brain, so the eye is a useful organ to look at to not only check for signs of eye disease, but also for diseases elsewhere in the body. A regular sight test should form a part of everyone’s healthcare regime.”

A routine eye exam can also detect signs of diabetes, brain tumors and high cholesterol.

The American Optometric Association (AOA) recommends a comprehensive eye exam every two years for adults ages 18 to 60, and annual exams for people age 61 and older. Folks who have a family history of eye disease such as glaucoma and macular degeneration should have a comprehensive exam every year.

In some cities, Lions Clubs provide free or low cost eye exams. To find a Lions Club in your area, go to [link].

NEW FILM – “BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS” – SHINES A LIGHT ON GROWING UP WITH LOW VISION

BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS is a new documentary that is the buzz of the blind and low vision communities. The film tells an uplifting and true story of a young legally blind woman, Michelle Smith. Michelle is a student at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston (where much of the movie is filmed). The story concerns Michelle’s quest for her dreams in spite of being treated like an outcast by her peers.

In BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS, Director Garrett Zevgetis provides an uncensored look at Smith’s life and challenges. She has some vision but is legally blind, experiences autism and is bruised by her parent’s divorce. None of this deters her from her dream of becoming a Hollywood voice actor.

Dr. Lotfi Merabet

Dr. Lotfi Merabet, OD, PhD, MPH at Harvard University was a key consultant for BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS. Critics have praised the film’s portrayal of blindness, low vision and the social awkwardness of many people with vision deficits. Dr. Merabet is the featured speaker at the 2017 CATSS Symposium, February 3^rd at the University of Minnesota. You can find Information about the Symposium below.

Take a look at the promotional trailer [link].

Here is Huffington Post’s review of the film:

Best and Most Beautiful Things Premieres at SXSW

03/01/2016 11:39 am ET | Updated Mar 01, 2016

Original article link  

Xaque Gruber, Writer

One of the year’s most touching documentary films, Best and Most Beautiful Things, makes its world premiere this month at SXSW. A provocative and joyous coming of age portrait of precocious 20 year old Michelle Smith of rural Maine, she’s both legally blind and diagnosed on the autism spectrum, but the film does not pander to that. She bursts off the screen as someone immensely relatable. You’ll want to know her. This is a powerful, affecting journey into a young woman’s mind as she searches for connection and empowerment by exploring life outside the limits of “normal” through a “fringe community.”

I had the pleasure of speaking with the film’s Executive Producer, Kevin Bright, who has succeeded in navigating the waters of both TV (he was Executive Producer of Friends) and film (his previous documentary work includes directing the 2007 film about his vaudevillian father, Who Ordered Tax?). Kevin executive produced the film with Claudia Bright.

Xaque Gruber: What was it about this project that attracted you? How did it find you?

Kevin Bright: My involvement with the project began in 2009 when I started a filmmaking class for students at the Perkins School for The Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. Michelle Smith was in that first class and was part of a group that made an award winning film Seeing Through the Lens. I loved the impact the film had on these students, giving them the power to tell their stories to the world. Our director, Garrett Zevgetis, was a volunteer at Perkins who at that time was making a short film about the impact of Helen Keller on current Perkins students.

After seeing an early cut, my recommendation was to focus the film on Michelle as a “modern day Helen Keller”. Garrett filmed Michelle - it was a 20 minute short that became a feature film and now here we are with a premiere at SXSW. 

XG: Let’s talk about Michelle Smith. She is legally blind, on the autism spectrum and lives in rural Maine - with those details she seems plucked from a Stephen King novel. She’s bound to win over many fans and hearts. Tell me what it was like working with her and do you see any of yourself in Michelle?

KB: Michelle is an inspiration to me. She could roll over and be a victim of her disability, instead she embraces it and challenges the rest of us to step out of our comfort zone and be open to different people and life styles, “unlearning normal” as Michelle says. Everyone falls for Michelle because she draws you in, makes a connection, but sometimes, can really shock you. Pity is not what she seeks, it is not in her vocabulary.

XG: Michelle’s “provocative fringe community”- how much can you tell us about it? Did her participation in this community make you squirm?

KB: It is pretty universal that your teens through your twenties is a time of exploration and experimentation, which includes sexuality. When I first became aware of Michelle in this community, I was concerned about her safety first and foremost, but also was afraid the audience would judge and define her by this one aspect of her life. I was her teacher and I felt responsible. Michelle made me aware that I knew nothing about this world and that my fears were being generated by simply being uninformed. Through Michelle I became informed and my concerns went away after seeing the positive impact the community was making on Michelle’s self esteem and life. It still makes me squirm a little, but I’m getting there.

XG: Do you have a favorite scene in the film?

KB: I have two. The first is when Michelle goes to watch her brother play in a basketball game. I think our editors Jeff Consiglio and Sarah Ginsburg did an incredible job of putting the audience squarely in Michelle’s shoes. The second is when Michelle goes swimming with her boyfriend at an indoor pool on a winter night.  The two of them alone, Michelle exhibiting wit and self-confidence, you forget that she is blind and all the challenges she is facing. Instead, you just get to sit back and enjoy two young people playing together in love.

XG: You are established in Hollywood as a TV comedy producer. So what is it like for you to step into the world of documentary film producing? And what have you learned about producing documentaries from Best and Most Beautiful Things?

KB: On one hand, it’s all storytelling, whether it’s an episode of Friends or someone’s life, telling that story is the key. Who Ordered Tax was about my dad Jackie, I knew that story well. To get Michelle’s story right took many years of patience to allow it to unfold. I wanted to pull the plug several times. But, the incredible team of filmmakers that I got to work with convinced me to keep going. This film really belongs to them, Garrett (director/producer), Jeff and Sarah (editors), and producers Ariana Garfinkel, Jeff Consiglio, and Jordan Salvatoriello. I am very proud of this collaboration, especially because three fellow Emerson College Alumni worked on it with me, which brought it all full circle.

“I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM LAST NIGHT”

I usually love my dreams. Once I got so wrapped up in a dream I fell out of bed. Best of all, my declining vision is fully restored in my dreams. According to a recent article on the web site Medicaldaily.com [link] that my vivid dreaming is not unusual. People like me who had years of normal site carry visions from the past, but the vitality of the dreams may erode over time.

Ninety percent of people who are legally blind are not totally blind. Total blindness (sometimes called “No Light Perception” – “NLP”) means seeing nothing, not even seeing black. People with NLP dream about the same things as other people, such as social interactions, successes, failures, and even really weird ones just like sighted people.

A recent Danish study found a fascinating difference between blind and sited people: Folks that are blind had four times as many nightmares as sighted people.

The Danish researchers examined 50 adults: 11 blind from birth, 14 who became blind sometime after age 1, and 25 non-blind individuals (referred to as “controls.”) Over a four-week period, participants filled out questionnaires about their dreams as soon as they woke up.

The questionnaires asked about several aspects of the dream: the sensory impressions (Did you see anything? If so, was it in color? Did you taste? Smell? Feel pain?); the emotional content (Were you angry? Sad? Afraid?); and the thematic content (Did you interact with someone? Did you fail at something? Was it realistic, or bizarre?). The questionnaire also asked whether the dream was a nightmare.

Nearly 30 percent of the blind reported smelling in at least one dream, compared with 15 percent of controls. Almost 70 percent of the blind reported a touch sensation, compared to 45 percent of controls. And 86 percent of the blind reported hearing, compared with 64 percent of controls.

Despite these sensory differences, the emotional and thematic content of dreams isn’t much different in the blind and the sighted. Both groups reported about the same number of social interactions, successes, and failures in their dreams. They had the same distribution of emotions, and the same level of bizarreness.

The biggest difference between the dreams of congenitally blind participants and control participants: The blind had a lot more nightmares: around 25 percent, compared with just 7 percent of the later-onset blind group and 6 percent of controls.

What might explain this plethora of nightmares? The researchers don’t know.

Other new research indicates that people who have been blind from an early age view the world in black and white. But, more research needs to be done. Some totally blind people say they have the ability to use echolocation, the same phenomenon that allows bats to navigate their physical space.

Some people who are totally blind report seeing images of parents, grandparents and other relatives in dreams. 

Psychologists who use Jungian Dream Theory believe this is an attribute of the Collective Unconscious. 

The hypothesis is that person’s DNA carries imprints of the family’s Collective Unconscious.

 So, you are what you dream you are.

NEW POSTS WILL RETURN

IN JANUARY 2016

 

DOES MARIJUANA CAUSE VISION IMPAIRMENT? DOES IT HELP TREAT GLAUCOMA PRESSURE?

Typical discussions of marijuana and vision usually concern pot’s ability to help people with glaucoma and related legal or political issues. Now, according to a report from UPI [link], frequent marijuana use may be linked (to a limited degree) to vision impairment.  

Preliminary results of research from France, published in the December 2016 issue of JAMA Ophthalmology, centers on the brain’s ability to receive incoming visual information. The study found that some frequent pot users experience a slight delay in the retina-to-brain nerve functioning. The researchers say the delay could indicate the presence of low vision.

The French study is based on research involving just 52 participants, 28 of whom were regular marijuana users. “Regular marijuana users” are folks who said they used marijuana at least seven times a week. The experts stressed that the findings are preliminary and further research is needed before conclusions should be made.

Scientists have known for some time that marijuana has an impact on nervous system communications. However, the current study did not necessarily prove that regular smokers do actually experience vision impairment. Most of the participants in the study did not complain of any vision issues before the study began.

Critics of the French study said it used an extremely small pool of patients, visual impairment symptoms of participants were not known prior to the study, and other lifestyle factors, such as diet and cigarette smoking, were not included in the research.

RESEARCH ABOUT MARIJUANA’S ABILITY TO LOWER GLAUCOMA PRESSURE IS MORE CONCLUSIVE

Legal recreational and medical use of marijuana has made it easier for people to “self medicate” their glaucoma treatment without consulting a doctor. This means marijuana participants are easier to find for research.

The notion that marijuana can be helpful in treating glaucoma dates to the 1970s. Studies conducted then showed that smoking marijuana lowered the internal eye pressure of people with glaucoma. Additional studies have concluded that the active ingredient in pot – THC – does make internal eye pressure lower. However, it only lowers internal eye pressure for a short period of time, typically three or four hours.

This short period of time is considered a drawback for the use of marijuana as a glaucoma treatment. Because glaucoma needs to be treated 24 hours a day, a person medicating with pot could become too impaired to drive or operate equipment.

WANT TO KNOW HOW IT FEELS? START WITH BLIND

Little Kenny Wonder

In late 2014 when I started my quest to understand my declining vision, I asked someone: Where should I start my training? 

Her response was:  

Start with blind and work backwards to your current low vision reality. If your vision continues to deteriorate you will be dealing with blindness sooner or later.

This was sobering advice, not something I wanted to hear, but I am glad I heard it. 

Around the same time, I started my training with a cane. I pretended I was blind.  I had a washcloth over my eyes. Then I ran into a wall!

Last Friday I had an Orientation and Mobility (“O & M”) training session with my coach John Higgins of Invision Services, Inc. I told John I want to blind for an hour to see how it feels. 

Being blind (in this case pretending to be blind) is terrifying. John told me that he offers blind training but few people ask for it. It is too scary. 

We started.  John gave me a blindfold (which I still have BTW).  I put it on blindfold and the world was totally dark. I walked a few minutes to get more comfortable with my cane. I was disoriented and unsure of myself. 

Then John taught. me the basics of coping:

First a safety measure: My arms and hands were extended to become bumpers on a car. 

Hopefully I could feel an object or barrier in front of me before I ran into it. That is what I am doing in the picture on the right.

Then John had me try a basic move: SQUARING OFF. I stood with my back against a known “landmark,” in this case a favorite chair. 

Next I imagine a landmark I want to go to. I want to walk in a straight line towards it. The destination is a desk on the other side of the room.  But when I got there I ran into it.

Lesson: Distances seem different when you are blind. Auditory cues and the sense of touch become dominant. I have lived in same place for over 18 years.  and thought I knew the layout like the back of my hand. 

But, I was wrong. Distances are different when you are blind.

I regained my composure and SQUARED OFF to begin walking to the kitchen.  I maneuvered through one familiar object after the other. I touched a sofa.  Then I touched a kitchen cabinet. I felt my way to stove.   

I SQUARED OFF at the stove and walked across the kitchen to my destination: The fridge.  Mission accomplished! Then I reversed the trip and got back to my chair. I did it on my own which is a great feeling.

The most important thing I learned from my being blind for an hour is concentration. At one point during the session my mind began to wander. 

BANG! I almost knocked over a lamp.It could have been worse.

I feel like a fish out of water.  This experience makes me thankful for the remaining vision I do have.

SALUTING LEADERS OF LOW VISION SERVICE

INVISION SERVICES, INC.

 

When a person has low vision, sometimes the choices seem overwhelming when looking for technology and training. Some providers are specialists, some are like a big box store and others are only in it for the money.

Today we are saluting a company with terrific people and a real sense of purpose: Invision Services, Inc. They sum it up in their company mission:

As we serve the needs of our clients, 

we serve each other’s growth.

I recommend Invision based on my own experience. A few weeks ago I published a post my cane training [link].

John Higgins

Invision Services [link] was founded by John Higgins in 1992. For more than two decades, Invision has enhanced and enriched the lives of visually impaired students and adults across the country.

Invision puts extra emphasis on serving folks in North Carolina. In 1985 Higgins became the first O&M Specialist to be hired by the North Carolina Public School System.  This assignment led Higgins to start Invision. Today, Higgins and his team at Invision have an Orientation & Mobility Specialist, a Teacher of the Visually Impaired, a Low Vision Specialist and a Certified Braillist.

Invision collaborates with schools to provide one-on-one instruction for their students. Evaluations, consultation, IEP development, material production, and direct instructional services help meet the needs of students.

Invision’s adult clients are referred by ophthalmologists, eye centers, social workers, and other sources, including family members. Adults can receive consultations, evaluations, and direct services customized to meet client’s unique daily living needs and goals.

NOW ON FACEBOOK

Invision’s public service extends to its Facebook page [link].

One of the things I like the most about Invision’s page is the “news ticker.” New posts appear frequently with information about job opportunities in the vision disability industry, the work of landmark programs such as the Perkins School for the Blind and other providers they recommend.