We offer an examination to investigate the symptoms and relief of Visual Stress (Meares-Irlen syndrome) in children and adults. Many children and adults suffer from visual discomfort when reading. This can affect reading fluency, concentration and comprehension and cause fatigue.
What is Visual Stress?
Visual Stress is a term used to describe visual discomfort and perceptual distortions in printed text often experienced by people who struggle to read. The condition is estimated to affect approximately 30 % of poor readers and 10 % of the general population to a significant degree. People with visual stress describe symptoms such as:
- Words moving around the page.
- Blurring of print
- Letters changing size or shape
- Patterns in the print (sometimes described as rivers or worms)
- Tiring easily whilst reading
How can I tell?
Signs of visual stress are some or all of the following:
- Struggling to follow text from left to right
- Frequent loss of place while reading, Skipping words or lines
- Unusual eye movements when scanning text
- Difficulty recognising words, reversing letters or numbers
- Moving closer to or further away from the book, moving the book around
- Fidgeting continuously
- Using finger as a marker on the page
- Skipping words or lines
- Rubbing eyes or blinking frequently when reading
- Poor comprehension of reading content
- Avoiding reading activities. Unexplained frustration during learning tasks.
Managing Visual Stress
There are effective options to manage these symptoms and improve quality of life. After a thorough assessment, we can recommend precision-tinted lenses or coloured overlays designed to reduce visual stress and enhance reading comfort. These custom solutions are tailored to your individual needs, helping to alleviate discomfort and improve clarity. In addition, we provide expert guidance on lifestyle adjustments and techniques to further support those living with Visual Stress, ensuring a holistic approach to better vision.
Visual Stress and Dyslexia
Visual stress is NOT the same as dyslexia.
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that mainly affects reading and writing skills. But it’s not limited to just those areas. Dyslexia is really about how the brain processes information. People with dyslexia may have difficulty processing and remembering what they see and hear. This can affect how they learn and how they develop reading and writing skills. Although dyslexia itself isn’t diagnosed by Optometrists, we can help identify visual factors like visual stress that may add to the difficulty, it is estimated that visual stress is present in 5 to 10% of people with dyslexia. With the right support, reading can become more comfortable and manageable.
Photosensitive Migraine and other conditions
Migraine attacks have many triggers, including stress and particular foods and hormones. About 40% of migraine attacks may be visually induced by flickering lights, patterns or reading. These attacks may be reduced by coloured filters. Research in the U.S. by a team of neuroscientists, using brain-imaging techniques, has shown that a suppression of over excitability in the visual cortex occurs in migraine sufferers when individually selected precision tinted lenses are worn. The lenses used in the study were selected using the Intuitive Colorimeter. Symptoms of other neurological conditions such as Autism, MS, ME and Parkinson’s have been shown to reduce when looking through coloured filters.
Coloured filters can help
Visual Stress can be reduced by the use of coloured filters which is usually in the form of a coloured overlay (transparent coloured sheet) placed over text or precision tinted spectacle lenses. Overlays are widely used by teachers in schools throughout the UK. The reduction occurs only when a specific colour is determined to suit the individual.
A full eye examination is necessary before prescribing overlays or precision tinted lenses in order to eliminate the possibility of a focusing or eye muscle problem. Please contact the practice for more information about our colorimetry service (overlay assessments and assessments with the the Cerium Intuitive Colorimeter) and the fees involved as currently colorimetry investigations overlays and precision tinted lenses are not funded by the NHS.
The selection of such a specific colour is firstly carried out at a overlay assessment. If after trying a coloured overlay at home, work or school is found to be beneficial then a more precise colour is determined with the Cerium Intuitive Colorimeter. This colour is then applied to spectacle lenses in the form a precision tint. This is often found be more effective at helping the symptoms than an overlay. In addition, it is more convenient for the person to look through spectacles than an overlay, for example, when reading from a board at school or for writing as well as reading.
Precision tinted lenses frequently result in reading that is more fluent and comfortable. Some lens wearers enjoy significant improvement in both reading rate and accuracy. The degree of improvement differs: some children experience improvements in reading age of one – two years within a few weeks of acquiring the lenses. In others the lenses may offer greater comfort when reading, but the reading improvement may be less dramatic because of other reading difficulty.