Key takeaways:

• A routine eye exam can address the basics of sports vision: visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, stereovision and depth perception.
• Measuring dynamic visual acuity can add another level of detail for athletes.

PHOENIX — A standard eye exam is sufficient to make an impact on the visual performance of pickleball players, according to a speaker at Optometry’s Meeting.

“Either you are a pickleball athlete, you know someone who’s a pickleball athlete, or they know someone who’s a pickleball athlete,” Matthew Roe, OD, FAAO, FOVDR, associate professor at Arizona College of Optometry at Midwestern University, said. “It is one of the most popular sports nowadays.”

In this video, Matthew Roe, OD, FAAO, FOVDR, discusses how pickleball players can benefit from standard eye exams.

“The visual system is one of those things that most athletes never get evaluated. ...[Yet] when you are in a high stress situation, your visual system is the one that tends to break down first,” Roe said.

Describing a multilevel “pyramid” of sports vision, he said the bottom two levels can be addressed in a standard eye exam: visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, stereovision and depth perception.

“If you can improve the foundation levels of the standard eye exam, then the rest of the sport will follow,” Roe told Healio. “If you think something is wrong, be active, make the improvement for them, and you’ll be a sports vision optometrist as well.”

The eye exam can also be tailored for athletes by evaluating their dynamic visual acuity. While Roe said during his presentation there is currently no “definitive way to measure dynamic visual acuity,” he offered some tips.

“You can have a treadmill in your office, have them run and do a [visual acuity] chart that way,” he said. “If you don’t want to have someone sweaty in your office, you can have them sit in the chair and shake [their] head back and forth because you’re going to still impact the vestibular system. ... If you have a rotator, you can put a Snellen chart on it and have it spin around.”

Roe emphasized that clear doctor-patient communication along the way is key.

“You need to keep on having that open communication, saying, ‘I’m pretty sure if we do this, we’re going to have improvement, but I need you to tell me as well,’” Roe said during his presentation. “If we can have this open conversation and be honest with each other, you’re in a really good spot.”

Roe told Healio that optometrists interested in going deeper into sports vision can try using Senaptec strobe glasses to visually train pickleball players.

“The strobe glasses shutter shut. You have reduced information to make accurate processing based off of. And if you can make that accurate decision with reduced visual information, then you’re going to be much more accurate when you’re on the field,” Roe said. “It’s the same thing as a sprinter training with a parachute behind them trying to go as fast as they can; take the parachute off, they can run faster.”

For more information:

Matthew Roe, OD, FAAO, FOVDR, can be reached at mroe@midwestern.edu.