Vision The Eye Story

Vision the Eye Story What Goes Wrong & How to Recover Your Sight

Describes the physical construction of the eye, the principles of vision, various eye abnormalities, and how to take good care of one's eyes.

In this New York Times bestseller, Isaac Lidsky draws on his experience of achieving immense success, joy, and fulfillment while losing his sight to a blinding disease to show us that it isn’t external circumstances, but how we perceive and respond to them, that governs our reality. Fear has a tendency to give us tunnel vision—we fill the unknown with our worst imaginings and cling to what’s familiar. But when confronted with new challenges, we need to think more broadly and adapt. When Isaac Lidsky learned that he was beginning to go blind at age thirteen, eventually losing his sight entirely by the time he was twenty-five, he initially thought that blindness would mean an end to his early success and his hopes for the future. Paradoxically, losing his sight gave him the vision to take responsibility for his reality and thrive. Lidsky graduated from Harvard College at age nineteen, served as a Supreme Court law clerk, fathered four children, and turned a failing construction subcontractor into a highly profitable business. Whether we’re blind or not, our vision is limited by our past experiences, biases, and emotions. Lidsky shows us how we can overcome paralyzing fears, avoid falling prey to our own assumptions and faulty leaps of logic, silence our inner critic, harness our strength, and live with open hearts and minds. In sharing his hard-won insights, Lidsky shows us how we too can confront life's trials with initiative, humor, and grace.

In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world. There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties. There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read. And there is Dr. Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side. Sacks explores some very strange paradoxes—people who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper-visual or who navigate by “tongue vision.” He also considers more fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think? How important is internal imagery—or vision, for that matter? Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading? The Mind’s Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person’s eyes, or another person’s mind.

"The Aravind Eye Hospital, based in India, is the world's largest provider of high-quality eye care. It is also one of the world's most incredible and revolutionary organizations - delivering surgical outcomes equal to or exceeding those in the developedworld at less than one percent of the cost, treating more than half of its patients free of charge, and taking no grants or donations. Aravind's success is so perplexing it has been the subject of a popular Harvard Business School case study. This is thefirst book to explore Aravind's history and the distinctive philosophies, practices, and commitments that are the keys to its success. Mehta and Shenoy share incredible stories about how Aravind grew from humble beginnings--founded by a retired ophthalmologist with no money or prior entrepre-neurial experience--to the world-class organization it is today. They explain the mysteries of a model that integrates innovation with empathy, service with business principles, and inner change with outer transformation. And they show how choices that seem foolish and unworkable can, when executed with compassion and integrity, yield powerful results - results that literally light the eyes of millions."--Provided by publisher.

This book was first projected in 2004, when Author Hannah Fairbairn was teaching interpersonal skills at the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Massachusetts. The experiences of her adult students—and her own experience of sight lost—convinced her that everyone losing vision needs access to good information about the process of adjustment to losing sight and practical ways to use assertive speech. When You Can’t Believe Your Eyes is intended for anyone going through vision loss, their friends, and families. It will inform readers how to get expert professional help, face the trauma of loss, and navigate the world using speech more than sight. Each of the twelve chapters in the book contain many short sections and bullet-point lists, intended to facilitate access to the right information. It begins where you begin—at the doctor’s office or the hospital. Since vision loss takes many forms, there are suggestions for questions you might ask to get a clear diagnosis and the best treatment. Part One also has a description of legal blindness and possible prevention, advice about your job, and tips for life at home. Part Two is about believing in yourself as you deal with the loss, the anger, and the fear before you come up for air and consider training. Parts Three and Four describe using assertive speech and action in all kinds of settings as your independence and confidence increase. Part Five gives detailed information about everything from dating, and caring for babies to senior living, volunteering, and retaining your job. It is hoped that by reading and trying out the suggestions, the reader will recover full confidence, become a positive, assertive communicator, and lead a satisfying life. Because vision loss happens mostly in older years, the book is written with seniors particularly in mind. Professionals will also find it to be a useful resource for their patients.

There are inestimable numbers of children who are struggling with learning, and compromised in ways most people are unaware of, because these little-known visual skills are not functioning properly. This can profoundly impact a child's success in school, and in life. The sym...

Who would have thought that a basic eye alignment problem could cause a person to be miserable or disabled? Yet that is exactly what is happening with Vertical Heterophoria (VH), a visual condition where there is a slight vertical image misalignment which causes headaches, dizziness, anxiety, neck pain and reading difficulties. Using techniques developed by Dr. Debby Feinberg, patients are fit with prism eyeglass lenses that realign the images, resulting (on average) in an 80% reduction of symptoms. This book contains the stories of those suffering from VH, their difficult journey through life and the medical system, and their recovery and return to health using just a simple pair of properly prescribed prism lenses."Who, indeed, could have supposed that a mere ocular defect could have given rise to so serious a train of evils...and who that had not seen it, could believe that the correction by glasses of the eye trouble could have given a relief so speedy and so perfect that the patient described it as a miracle?" Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Neurologist and Headache Specialist Philadelphia, PA Headaches and Eye Strain, April 1876