Archive for category: Guest Posts

Guest post by Jon Stoppel, Optometrist

Jon Stoppel

Before your child starts school, you try to make sure all the building blocks are in place: they know their ABCs, 123s, colors, shapes, etc. You buy the backpack and the lunchbox and the perfect first day of school outfit. But did you make an appointment to see your optometrist? If not, you could be missing a crucial step in ensuring your child’s success.

“Eighty percent of learning happens through sight,” says Jon Stoppel, an optometrist with Overland Park and Gardner, Kan.-based Drs. Hawks, Besler, Rogers and Stoppel. “If a child is having difficulties seeing, then comprehension is secondary. Clearing up their eyesight needs to be a top priority.”

If a child can’t physically see information clearly, learning can cease to happen, Stoppel says.

Common vision problems found in children that can impede learning include:

• Hyperopia (far sightedness)
• Myopia (near sightedness)
• Astigmatism
• Asymmetry in sightedness between eyes, which can cause amblyopia (lazy eye)
• Muscle coordination issues such as esotropia (crossed eyes or eye) or exotropia (turned out eyes or eye)
• Accommodative issues such as lack of focusing or delayed focus while reading or transitioning from near to far vision

“Studies show that 20 percent of children entering kindergarten in the U.S. have vision problems,” Stoppel notes. “And that number jumps to 30 to 40 percent by high school.”

In fact, he added, 60 percent of adults in literacy programs have vision problems.

Academics aren’t the only concern with undiagnosed and untreated vision problems either. Many children who can’t see well enough to learn at the same rate as their peers begin to exhibit behavioral issues as well.

“Not to be alarmist,” Stoppel says,” but 70 percent of juvenile delinquents have vision issues.”

Literacy Rates and Prison Populations

He went on to detail how certain states use literacy rates to predict future prison populations. For example, in Indiana officials factor in 2^nd grade reading rates; analyses in Ohio, Texas and Florida take into account reading rates in 3^rd grade; and California uses 4^th and 9^th grade literacy statistics to predict rates of incarceration.

However, educational success and the overall health of a child are Stoppel’s top concern.

“We also make sure the eye is healthy and working properly for the age of the child,” he says. “We run tests to rule out congenital cataracts, glaucoma and retina issues that aren’t commonly seen but can happen at all ages and can greatly affect future sight.”

If your child will be starting school next August, there’s no better time to schedule an eye appointment than the present. And if you’re child’s already started school but hasn’t visited an optometrist, it’s never too late. It’s a quick, painless visit, and it brings with it the knowledge that your child can see well enough to learn well.

Jade Meylor, DC

Post written by Jade Meylor, DC
Meylor Chiropractic & Acupuncture 
Greater Kansas City Accident & Injury Clinics
Academy of Chiropractic- Trauma Team Member
7922 Quivira Rd., Lenexa, KS 66215 
913-227-0909
www.meylorchiro.com  

6 Keys to Staying Healthy and Well for Life

1. Nutrition: You are what you eat. Food and drink should be pure/organic and well balanced. What you put into your body is what you will get out!
2. Exercise: You don’t use it, you lose it. Your body is made to be active, to move you and to be pushed at times. Ninety percent of stimulation and nutrition to the brain is generated by movement of the spine. So, get moving!
3. Mood: Laughter is the best medicine. Negative thoughts can create imbalances in the body that are harmful to your health. Don’t put yourself in negative situations. These situations can release chemicals in your body that are bad for your health. Think positive, be kind to others and smile. You are in control of your mood, so be happier!
4. Sleep: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. On average, seven to nine hours defines “normal” deep sleep every night. Calm your mind, get your body into a routine and sleep in the proper positions. Sleeping on your back is the best and side sleeping is fine (if done correctly). Stomach sleeping, however, is never correct!
5. Correct ergonomics: As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Sitting properly (men, without a wallet in your back pocket), and sitting with your legs uncrossed and with proper lumbar support, helps promote better pelvic and spinal alignment.  Standing in one place for long periods of time is best done with one foot slightly elevated, like on a stool, approximately six to 12 inches from the floor.
6. Spinal and joint motion: To stop a SYMPTOM, correct the CAUSE!  From the trauma of being born to sports injuries or auto accidents, your body goes through a lot of stressors. Repetitive stress, bad posture, incorrect ergonomics and sleeping wrong can also send your body down the wrong path. Think of a car that hits a curb with the tire. If that tire gets out of alignment, although you can still drive on it, it will wear out much faster than the tires that are aligned. That is what happens to your spine, or any joints, with injuries and stressors.

One of the best ways to improve proper biomechanics is through Chiropractic adjustments. Once degeneration/arthritis occurs in the spine it can’t be reversed. With Chiropractic, however, it can be slowed down or stopped. Aging and degenerative changes are not synonymous.  Nerves control every cell, tissue and organ of your body.

If your spine is misaligned it can pinch nerves and create dysfunction of your body, as well as pain and general unhealthiness. Pain in your back or neck, numbness and tingling in your arms or legs, digestive issues or headaches are SYMPTOMS.

Chiropractic treats the CAUSE not the SYMPTOM. Chiropractic is a key part of true health!

Post written by Sallie Page-Goertz, APRN | Medical Director Reach Out and Read KC

Are you a brain builder? Do you have a young baby/child at your house?

If so, you have the opportunity to help build that baby’s brain so that they are ready to learn when they get to kindergarten!

Research shows us that the first 1,000 days of life (birth to age 3) is the most rapid period of brain growth. Every SECOND there are more than one MILLION nerve connections being made within the brain.

For healthy brain development, those connections need to be great ones – Ones that help a child see, hear, learn to talk, learn to be sociable and learn to control their emotions.

The adults and older children in the child’s life help make those healthy connections happen!  This is why health care providers give families a book and a prescription to read during every well baby visit from the first week of life through age 5!

How does this work?

Every time we talk, sing, read and cuddle our babies and young children, healthy connections are being made in their brains.

The more people talk, read, sing to their children, the more words those children are learning, even before they can speak.

A fascinating research project had six-month-old babies look at pictures, and researchers watched the babies respond to hearing the word that went with the picture – such as bird, ball, and apple.

Amazingly, babies who live with talkative families were more likely to look at the picture that went with the word, compared to babies who live with quiet families.

As babies approach age 3 to 4, their vocabularies grow and grow if they are in talkative families who read to them frequently. When children know more words, it’s easier for them to learn new words.

When children know more words, they are more prepared for learning new things in kindergarten.

Children living in homes where people don’t talk/read/sing a lot to their babies have about 400 fewer words in their vocabulary at age 4.

This gap in the number of words that they know makes kindergarten much harder for them, and it may be very difficult for them to ever catch up to the other children, or to be good readers by third grade. In third grade, kids are expected to be reading well, and learning new things depends on their ability to be good readers!

Using TV or phone apps or tablet programs that claim to be educational is NOT a substitute for the one-to-one interaction between a baby or young child and another person during reading/talking/singing. Research shows that babies and children although fascinated by what they see on a screen, do NOT learn from programs on screens.

So, be a brain builder!  Talk constantly to your little one – while you’re dressing, feeding, diapering them. Read to them every day – this builds their vocabulary. Sing and cuddle them. All of this nurturing builds healthy brain connections, millions per second in the first 1,000 days of life!

Health Partnership is a clinic partner of Reach Out and Read Kansas City. On behalf of our young patients and their families, thank you for donating culturally and developmentally appropriate books. It’s making a difference in so many lives!