Do This To Treat Eye Tracking Issues With Parkinson’s

People with Parkinson’s Disease may have a variety of symptoms related to their vision, such as difficulty reading, double vision, and dry eyes. But did you know that having trouble tracking a target can cause serious balance issues and falls? Fortunately, there are simple exercises you can do to improve your eye tracking ability and prevent these problems from developing.

Finding and following targets requires two very important eye movements: Saccades and Pursuits.

Last week we learned about saccadic eye movements: rapid eye movements where the eyes can quickly jump and focus on different targets. With PD, this movement tends to be too slow, or fast and erratic.

But what if that target starts to move? Can you stay focused and follow it at the speed it’s moving? Pursuits are smooth eye movements where your eyes focus and follow a moving target at the same speed it’s moving. 

Watch This Video To Learn How to Treat Eye Tracking Issues with Parkinson’s:

Now you can see why eye movement issues can cause balance problems, since we tend to heavily rely on our vision to tell us where we are in space.

Practice this Pursuit exercise and then add in the Saccades exercise from last week (see video below). This could prevent a terrible fall from your reliance on faulty eye patterning.

💜 Coach Kimberly