Northbrook, Ill.
Having a child’s eye-ear connection tested in an optometrist’s office? “Crazy,” thought Allison Suhowatsky, mother of Scott Harvey, a 10-year-old who had been diagnosed with ADHD. However, “crazy” proved to be “magical” for Scott.
Scott began sleeping through the night, something he had done only a handful of times before, when he started wearing a pair of filters prescribed by Deborah Zelinsky O.D., founder and research director of the Mind-Eye Institute, based in Northbrook, Ill, following that “crazy eye-ear test.”
“One expects to get eyeglasses for 20/20 eyesight, but these were magical,” said Allison. “Scott wore them for less than a minute twice a day, but now he was getting the all-night rest he needed to relax his body and help him better process his day.”
Added Dr. Zelinsky, “The filter Scott was prescribed blocks most frequencies of light and allows only one frequency to activate retinal pathways other than eyesight. The filters do not need to be worn for a long period of time to have a lingering effect.”
Just as importantly, Allison noted that Scott was beginning to overcome some of his learning and concentration struggles at school, and “his irritability decreased.” Allison first took Scott to the Mind-Eye Institute on the recommendation of her son’s physical therapist. During that initial appointment, Dr. Zelinsky had Scott “watching items on a screen to check his eye tracking, reading from a book and looking at various images. Then, she wanted to evaluate his visualization of auditory space.
Using her patented Z-Bell Test℠, Dr. Zelinsky asked Scott to close his eyes and then reach out and touch a small bell that she was ringing near him. He couldn’t. “Scott is flailing his arms trying to find the bell, and I am wondering, ‘What is going on here? What’s the problem?’” stated Allison.
“His eyes and ears are not connecting; let’s change that,” Allison recalls Dr. Zelinsky telling her. The appropriate eyeglass prescription for Scott was determined by putting different lenses, prisms and tints over his closed eyes until he could readily touch the bell. Since that first appointment, Scott has received updated eyeglasses with prisms, which he wears most of the day.
The prisms bend the light in ways that optimize the relationship between central and peripheral receptors in Scott’s retinas, while improving the connection with his eyes and ears. They act like training wheels on a bicycle -- used for a short time until the patient can do the skill themselves without help.
The right mix of filters, lenses and/or prisms can read just a patient’s visual balance and eye-ear connection by altering the way light disperses across the retina, explains Dr. Zelinsky. “The retina is a piece of brain tissue. That’s why changes in lighting levels on the eye will affect how the brain interprets and reacts to information about the environment and can impact a person’s spatial awareness, movement and selective attention to sound.”
Unlike standard eyeglasses that mainly correct central eyesight, eyeglass prescriptions developed through the Z-Bell Test℠ are therapeutic, addressing peripheral eyesight and bringing patients like Scott relief for a range of symptoms caused by eye-ear imbalances, brain injuries and other neurological issues, including learning problems such as ADHD.
“These temporary glasses are changing Scott’s life,” concluded Allison. “They are helping him better understand where he is in his body – and in space. Dr. Zelinsky said she would help Scott’s problems by using 21st century research – and she has.”
To see more, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0NDLpTRZQc&feature=youtu.be.
About Mind-Eye Institute
The Mind-Eye Institute, an internationally known optometry practice with an emphasis on neuro-optometric rehabilitation, is revolutionizing scientific understanding of how the retina serves as a two-way portal into the mind and body. The way light disperses across the retina can impact brain function. That’s because changes in ambient lighting affect how the brain reacts, interprets and responds to information about the environment, thereby impacting a person’s spatial awareness, movement, and selective attention to sound. Using prescriptive eyeglasses, lenses or other optometric interventions to selectively stimulate light dispersed on the retina, the Mind-Eye Institute is helping patients redevelop visual skills during recovery from debilitating, life-altering symptoms of brain injuries and neurological disorders due to trauma, stroke, dementia and PTSD. The Institute also works to develop skills in patients with learning problems, including autism and ADHD. For more information, please call 847-501-2020 or visit https://mindeye.com.
For media inquiries, please contact Mike Maggio, public relations specialist for the Mind-Eye Institute, at 312-968-9199 or mediarel96@outlook.com.
