Depth Perception

Our ability to have good eye coordination (eye tracking, focusing, etc.) affects more than our ability to read and work on a computer. Eye coordination can also affect sports performance. A common effect of poor visual coordination is depth perception, which is an essential part of athletic performance. Depth perception comes from coordination between the two eyes. They work together to determine depth, distance, etc. In fact, depth perception is the primary reason for having two eyes. A lot of people don’t realize they have depth perception issues until they’re trying to catch a ball. Catching a ball requires a high level of depth perception, and any issues with this task can be a sign of vision problems.

Visualization and Coordination

A couple of years ago, the team at WAVTC put together a sports clinic. They worked with a young baseball team for two weeks and trained the team on eye coordination. After the two weeks, many of the participants commented on how much it had improved their game. Athletes that have done vision therapy will talk about how therapy tends to slow the game down for them. Vision therapy helps athletes visualize the ball and other players much better. Edgar Martinez played for the Seattle Mariners for 18 years and is currently their hitting coach. He is known to have done vision therapy, which directly affected his baseball game.

Head Trauma

One of the biggest issues facing vision experts has to do with the lack of information the public has about the effect that trauma can have on vision. Concussions are not uncommon in contact and non-contact sports alike, but even mild trauma can cause headaches, double vision, loss of place when reading, and overall feeling of being overwhelmed with one’s vision. Luckily, there’s a relatively new eye-tracking test associated with the Mayo Clinic called the King-Devick test. Experts are finding the test to not only be incredibly effective in detecting some vision issues but also a powerful concussion screening test. We encourage sports teams of any age level to learn more about this test and its ability to prevent severe damage from head trauma.