Your hand-eye coordination plays an important role in your day-to-day life. You’ll want your vision to be sharp if you’re always on the go. If you’re struggling with hand-eye coordination, your eye care professional can help unlock your vision’s full potential through sports vision therapy.
Your vision therapy program will be personalized to your needs and help assess each visual skill, including hand-eye coordination. Your optometrist will implement exercises that can help you get better hand-eye coordination.
Let’s take a closer look at how vision therapy can help and some other tips for improving hand-eye coordination.
How Sports Vision Therapy Works
Your visual performance is essential, especially if you’re an athlete. No matter what sport you play or the activity you participate in, your eyes are crucial for reacting quickly, handling any equipment, and being accurate. However, if you’re struggling with hand-eye coordination, that can throw off your whole game.
Sports vision therapy, in particular, is about training your eye’s visual skills and helps with aspects of your vision like:
- Eye-hand coordination
- Eye tracking and accuracy
- Eye focusing
- Depth Perception
Eye-hand coordination is one of the most important skills you can have as an athlete. It’s important for dribbling a ball, handling a puck, or even playing a complicated instrument like the drums.
Your eye doctor will thoroughly assess your vision during a vision therapy appointment to determine the best course to take with your personalized program. The assessment takes around 20 minutes to perform, and your optometrist will use various technologies to assess each visual skill.
Your tailored program will involve using different tools and exercises to improve your visual skills, which can include:
- Exercises that promote improved hand-eye coordination, balance, gaze stability, depth perception, and visual-motor integration
- Computerized video games and exercises
- Therapeutic lenses, prisms, and filters
Your personal vision therapy program will be reassessed monthly by your optometrist to track changes and progress in your vision.
Activities to Improve Hand-Eye Coordination
You may only really think about your hand-eye coordination once you begin noticing issues with it. One of the most common reasons for this decline is simply aging. As you age, your accuracy and speed can naturally decline, and you won’t be able to perform tasks with that same reaction time and dexterity.
Some activities you can try to improve your hand-eye coordination include:
- Swimming—a low-impact activity that can help
- Tai Chi—which combines meditative stretching and balance exercises
- Juggling—helps focus on your hand-eye coordination
- Regular visits to your eye doctor to maintain your eye health
Exercise has been shown through numerous studies to have a positive impact on hand-eye coordination. Implementing these exercises into your daily life and talking to your eye doctor about dedicated vision therapy can help.
Getting your eyes checked at least once a year through a comprehensive eye exam can also help keep your vision sharp and, in turn, help with hand-eye coordination. Your eye doctor can provide corrective lenses for declining vision and check for possible eye conditions that may be affecting your vision.
Unlock Your Vision’s Potential
Everyone can see changes in their body and vision as they age. Programs like sports vision therapy can help manage the decline of hand-eye coordination and strengthen your vision through targeted activities.
Book an appointment with our eye care professionals at Dr. Taylor Bladh, OD in Diamond Bar to explore a vision therapy program that can help you with hand-eye coordination.
