What Is Neuro-Visual Postural Therapy?

Your vision plays a crucial role in how your body makes its way through the world. It works with balance centers in your body to allow you to move through space with ease in a variety of different ways. This nonstop communication keeps you steady and responsive. Yet, if a neurological or visual issue affects how your vision and body work together, it can impact your sense of stability.

Fortunately, neuro-optometrists – such as our team at DeyeNAMICS — can help. One of our key treatments is Neuro-Visual Postural Therapy (NVPT), which we use to treat a range of visual disorders and neurological issues. We rely on NVPT to support many aspects of healthy function. Here’s a closer look at this treatment.

Defining Neuro-Visual Postural Therapy

Your visual system works closely with your balance, support, movement, and spatial processing systems. When one is out of balance, the others compensate. These compensations are not always effective.

For example, let’s say you have double vision. This occurs because your eyes point in different directions resulting in doubling of images which leads you to tilt or turn your head to reduce the doubling. This in turn can impact your balance because the proprioceptive information from the muscles in your head and neck send different position signals to areas in your brain that must be matched to visual information. This can affect your balance as you try to adapt.

NVPT helps restore the coordination between your visual system and your postural and balance systems in your body. In simple terms, NVPT helps improve your:

• Ability for your eyes to work together
• Spatial visual processing
• Executive processing
• Balance
• Postural base of support
• Accuracy of eye movements 

By working on each of these areas, we help improve your visual motor integration using NVPT. This therapy rebalances your spatial visual system, which influences your balance and posture, with your focal visual process, which affects cognitive function. That means we aid in coordination of your brain, vision, and body so you can move with more ease and confidence. 

Who Can Benefit from Neuro-Visual Postural Therapy

We use NVPT to treat a wide range of issues, including:

• Amblyopia (lazy eye)
• Strabismus (cross-eyes)
• Convergence issues (difficulty with turning both eyes inward during near tasks)
• Post-stroke visual symptoms, such as double or blurry vision
• Traumatic brain injuries (concussions)
• Dizziness
• Neurological disorders that disrupt visual processing, such as cerebral palsy

In short, NVPT can help with any condition that interferes with how your brain, vision, and posture work together.

What Happens During Neuro-Visual Postural Therapy

We tailor NVPT exercises to each person’s unique needs. For example, we might use prism glasses or an eye patch along with balance or eye-tracking exercises.

To find out if you might benefit from NVPT, contact us at one of our offices in Sacramento, Bellflower, or Valencia, California; Guildford, Connecticut; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; or Plano, Texas, to schedule an appointment.