Finding the “Eye” Amid a Pandemic Storm: A Holistic Guide Toward Visual and Autonomic Balance

Abstract

In March, 2020, the world was confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide governmental orders to “shelter in place.” Within days of this externally imposed hardship, threatening plans for gathering in every community, behavioral optometry organized a platform for virtual education which united the vision therapy community in mutual self-education, shared over 55 countries around the globe. The following article is distilled from a 4-part series of lectures presented by the author, Dr. Samantha Slotnick, on “Making Remote Vision Therapy Valuable.” These lectures constitute a guide for acting in a supportive capacity for our patients, with attention to the reciprocal roles of a balanced, open and available visual process, and a balanced autonomic nervous system. It addresses the impact of the sympathetic response on the visual system, and offers guidance to help patients selfmodulate the state of their nervous systems, with both bottom-up and top-down direction. In particular it elucidates the role of the peripheral visual field in both stress modulation and binocular visual skill development. It offers recommendations on conducting optometric assessments through the telehealth interface, as well as providing vision therapy through a video-based portal. Through the hardship the pandemic has created, and the wonder of technology, this isolating experience may in fact serve as an opportunity to hone our single most valuable tool in our practice: Ourselves, and our ability to facilitate change for others.