MainosMemos Statistics

In March, Blogger's statistics page tells me I had 7,453 page views! My greatest number of page views is noted as being almost 63,000!!

Thanks for reading this blog.....please, tell me what I can to do make it even better!

Dominick M. Maino, OD, MEd, FAAO, FCOVD-A

The Public Health Implications of Virtual 3D - Michael Duenas

National Academies of Practice Medallion

When you are honored by the National Academies of Practice you receive a beautiful medallion and certificate. This is a front and back view of the medal. DM

Illinois College of Optometry Faculty & Alumni Honored

Photo Caption: Drs. Dominick M. Maino, Lester Caplan and John C. Whitener being honored at the recent NAP meeting in Washinton, DC

This past March, the National Academies of Practice in Washington, DC once again honored faculty and alumni from the Illinois College of Optometry. Those being recognized included Dominick M. Maino, OD, MEd, FAAO, FCOVD-A; Professor of Pediatrics/Binocular Vision at ICO and John C. Whitener, OD, MPH. Both of these individuals were honored as Distinguished Practitioners. Lori Grover, OD, FAAO was recognized as a NAP Fellow and Lester Caplan, OD, MEd, FAAO, a Senior Consultant at the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry and Professor Emeritus at University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Optometry, was singled out for special recognition by being given the Optometry Academy’s James Boucher OD Award.

AOA Practice Transitions: Click Here to Learn More

Attention to social stimuli and facial identity recognition skills in autism spectrum disorder.

.....data showed that participants with ASD were impaired on both face- and object-matching tasks ....Eye-tracking data revealed that both groups showed a strong bias to orient towards people. .... In the ASD group, an individual's preference for looking first at the people in scenes was associated with level of face recognition ability. ...

Impaired fixation to eyes following amygdala damage arises from abnormal bottom-up attention

...SM is a patient with complete bilateral amygdala lesions who fails to fixate the eyes in faces and is consequently impaired in recognizing fear .... SM's fixations to eye region of faces became entirely normalized. We suggest that this effect arises from the absence of bottom-up effects due to the facial features, allowing gaze location to be driven entirely by top-down control. .... the findings suggest that the saliency of the eyes normally attract our gaze in an amygdala-dependent manner. Impaired eye gaze is also a prominent feature of several psychiatric illnesses in which the amygdala has been hypothesized to be dysfunctional, and our findings and experimental manipulation may hold promise for interventions in such populations, including autism and fragile X syndrome....


Impaired fixation to eyes following amygdala damage arises from abnormal bottom-up attention

Neuropsychologia, Volume 49, Issue 4, March 2011, Pages 589-595, Daniel P. Kennedy, Ralph Adolphs

Children With Tourette Syndrome May Benefit From Brain Training

....The study, published in the journal Current Biology, found that many children with TS experience a 'reorganisation' of the brain structure in their teens, as their brain compensates for the condition and allows them to gain control over their symptoms and tics....

Causes and Management of Red Eye

.....Red eye is the most common ocular sign encountered in emergency and outpatient settings. Recognition of vision-threatening causes and those requiring referral to an ophthalmologist is of utmost importance. This article reviews causes and management of red eye in children with an emphasis on allergic etiology, pathophysiology, and recent advances in therapy. .....

What Is Sturge-Weber Syndrome? What Is Encephalotrigeminal Angiomatosis?

.....Sturge-Weber syndrome, also known as encephalotrigeminal angiomatosis, encephalofacial angiomatosis, or Sturge-Weber-Dimitri syndrome is a congenital disorder that affects the skin, the neurological system, and sometimes the eyes. Congenital means you are born with it. However, Sturge-Weber syndrome is not an inherited disorder.....

Mortality Among 15 To 24 Year Olds Overtakes That Of 1 To 4 Year Olds

.....Young men aged 15 to 24 are dying prematurely at three times the rate, compared to boys aged 1 to 4. Most young people aged 15 to 24 are dying because of injuries - this age group saw mortality rates improve over the last half-century at half the rate of 1 to 4 year old children....

Differences In Eye Movement Between British And Chinese Populations

....investigated eye movements in Chinese and British people to further understanding of the brain mechanisms that control them and how they compare between different human populations. They found that a type of eye movement (saccades), that is rare in British people, is much more common in Chinese people, suggesting that there could be subtle differences in brain function between different populations. ...

The Children's Hospital Concussion Experts Share Tips For Recognizing And Responding To Concussion Signs And Symptoms

.....According to the Brain Injury Association of Colorado, a conservatively estimated 1,500 to 2,500 youth athletes visit Colorado emergency rooms for sports-related concussions each year. At the same time, the number of children treated in the outpatient Concussion Program at The Children's Hospital has risen steadily over the last three years at an average rate of 32 percent per year.....

Female, Male Youth Report Different Concussion Symptoms

....The research revealed that in addition to headache, high school girl athletes were more likely to complain of neurological symptoms like sensitivity to light or sleeplessness. Their male peers, conversely, are more likely to report neuro-cognitive issues, like loss of memory or balance control.....

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/220430.php

......Sturge-Weber syndrome, also known as encephalotrigeminal angiomatosis, encephalofacial angiomatosis, or Sturge-Weber-Dimitri syndrome is a congenital disorder that affects the skin, the neurological system, and sometimes the eyes. Congenital means you are born with it. However, Sturge-Weber syndrome is not an inherited disorder.....

The Mastrota Meibomian Gland Paddle in Use

I haven't seen a patient with  Meibomian Gland Dysfunction so terrible that this would be useful, but if I do, I just may have to order me one of these!! DM

Colorado Vision Summit: Click Here for More Information

Central and peripheral visual performance in myopes: Contact lenses versus spectacles

....Eye care practitioners can be confident that modern soft contact lenses do not impair visual performance compared to spectacle lenses for the majority of myopes.....

Identifying Neurocognitive Deficits in Adolescents Following Concussion

....Immediate assessment in the ED can predict neurocognitive deficits seen in follow-up and may be potentially useful to individualize management or test therapeutic interventions. Neurocognitive assessment in the ED detected deficits that clinical grading could not and correlated with deficits at follow-up.....

National Academies of Practice Optometry 2011

I had the pleasure of being recognized as a Distinguished Practitioner by the National Academies of Practice in Washington DC this past weekend along with several of my incredible colleagues. This PDF lists these colleagues. Only 150 individuals from each profession can be an academy member. For a complete listing of all the new inductees, in all the disciplines, please click on the title above. DM

National Academies of Practice Optometry 2011

View more documents from Dominick Maino.

Continued monitoring after amblyopia treatment advised

....A prolonged risk for deterioration of visual acuity persists for at least 2 years after termination of amblyopia treatment, . ....“We recommend a follow-up time of 2 years after cessation of treatment for all treated patients with amblyopia,” .....

Comments: It has been shown that if you abruptly stop therapy for amblyopia that regression occurs. So once the visual acuity is where you want it....you should continue some home maintenance therapy at least for a while (I usually do home activities for 3 months). Although many doctors give lip-service to the fact that amblyopia (lazy eye) is a binocular vision problem, few treat it as such. Clinically I've seen amblyopia improve and maintained if you do binocular optometric vision therapy.... DM

Migraine Rates Up for No Apparent Reason

....researchers compared data from a survey conducted in the mid-1990s to data collected in 2006-2008, shows that people aged 20-50 years are more prone to migraines now than in the mid 1990s....

Comments: I also seem to be seeing more and more children with migraines than every before as well. Has anyone else noticed this? DM

Self-Adjustable Glasses Voted Most Likely To Make The Biggest Impact On Healthcare By 2020

.....Self-adjustable glasses are low-cost glasses with adjustable lenses, the power of which is set by the wearer by looking through the lenses and turning a dial until they can see clearly. The glasses have a number of advantages for the developing world in that those distributing the glasses need not be highly trained, distribution is quick and easy, and almost any organisation working in the developing world can add vision correction to the services they provide. .....

Laughter, music may lower blood pressure

...people who took part in bimonthly group sessions built around music or laughter lowered their systolic blood pressure (the top number in the reading) by an average of five to six points after three months. By contrast, the average blood-pressure reading in a control group that received neither therapy didn't budge....., blood-pressure reductions of the size seen in the study have been linked to a 5% to 15% lower risk of death from heart disease or stroke,....

Comments: Come sing with the St. Bartholomew Choir. We laugh, sing, sing then laugh, laugh then sing, sing, sing, laugh. And, oh yes....sing. If you are in the Chicago-land area (North/Northwest Side) come and get healthy by singing and laughing.... DM

Uncommon Headache Syndromes in the Pediatric Population

....Headache is one of the most common symptoms in children and adolescents, and headache syndromes are an important reason for medical consulting. According to the second edition of the International Classification of Headache Disorders, there are 196 possible headache diagnoses, of which 113 have been described in pediatric population. Herein, we focus on unusual pediatric headache syndromes. We group them as headaches with migraine features, short-duration headaches with autonomic features, short-duration headaches without autonomic features, and potentially ominous forms of headaches. Although rare as single entities, providers focusing on pediatric headaches certainly will face some of these headaches and need to be comfortable on the diagnostic approach. .....

Why 3D Movies Could Be So Much More

Great thoughts about 3D movies from Forbes Magazine author, Mark Changizi :....The trouble with “3D Movies” is that they’re not 3D movies so much as “binocular movies.” The stereopsis 3D sense is just one of multiple perceptual functions binocular vision gives us, and it is not the most important. Evolutionary cognitive scientist Mark Changizi argues that “3D Movie” makers have been missing out on most of their creative space, because they have not recognized the full range of powers their binocular movies can harness.....But binocular vision has other important functions besides stereopsis. .....binocular vision is not about seeing the world so much as seeing ourselves..... “3D film” ought to be about putting the viewer into the body and eyes of characters in the story, immersing them in the milieu of the complex interactions between the character’s body and the surrounding world. And part of this is the experience of being in the body of the character.....

Illinois optometry college and CPS help students to focus on schoolwork

....For students like Mather High School freshman Cortez Atterberry, things are looking a little bit clearer.  In just over two months, a joint venture between Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois College of Optometry has given free eye exams and glasses to hundreds of students city wide. .....