I was talking to my neurologist about the new (to me) FL-41 coating I got for my glasses, which helps my headaches substantially and makes me actually use them regularly. He asked to see them, I assumed just to see how dark the tint was. But he spent an awfully long time looking at them, which I found odd.
He then turned his attention back to me and excitedly said “you have antimetropia, getting that corrected probably helps as much as the coating!”
He went on to explain that my left eye is farsighted and my right eye is nearsighted, which, uncorrected, leads to headaches, photophobia (sensitivity to light) and various other issues, and can eventually cause lazy eye, where the brain filters out info from one eye entirely. My optometrists never said anything about that, but probably should have. I would have actually worn the glasses more often even before the coating (the correction itself is pretty mild). Though that does explain why I could never figure out if I was supposed to wear them all the time or not.
I looked it up when I got home, and I guess it only impacts 0.1% of the population, so yay. Make that TWO rare conditions! (I also have a birth defect where my bottom 3 vertebrae are fused to my pelvis, lumbar pillows, even the ones built into car seats, are horrible torture devices for me)
That’s not strictly true. You’re talking about the concept of critical periods, first proposed by child psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget helped tremendously in the field of child psychology, but like Newton, his theory was eventually superseded. Today, psychologists believe in the concept of the sensitive period.
The difference between the two theories is that sensitive periods aren’t absolute. An old dog can still learn new tricks, it’s just harder. The current generation of psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists, for the most part, believe that the brain remains plastic at all ages. It’s just that plasticity diminishes.
If I were you, I’d try an eyepatch for a few months, see if this old dog can learn that trick. Oh, and here’s a source:
https://www.optometrists.org/vision-therapy/guide-to-vision-therapy-for-adults/vision-therapy-for-adults/
Ooh, turns out they got new therapies for adults! Read this:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6389748/
My mom has this, in her 80s. I wonder if this would help her.
At 80 I’d say it depends on how active she keeps her mind. Most people lose fluid intelligence and gain crystallised intelligence as they age. That’s your brain transitioning out of learning mode and into knowing mode. Old people tend to have a lot of wisdom, but not much neuroplasticity.
But those are just population averages. Your mind retains and can even recover plasticity if you keep it active by continually learning new things. It’s just like physical exercise. So it’s going to depend on your mum’s mental fitness, which all comes down to her choices in life.
I’ve known plenty of old people who just give up on learning, because they think knowledge is for using and they’re not going to use their knowledge much before they die. Other people stay active because they value the pursuit of knowledge and rely on their mind as their sense of purpose and identity.
I was more speaking on what the optometrists say. I will have a look at those sources you sent, though. Thanks.