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Revision as of 08:43, 10 April 2005 by AED (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Bates method is a controversial system that is intended to improve vision through a set of practices that are claimed to relax the eyes. It was first described in 1920 by William Horatio Bates in a book entitled Perfect Sight Without Glasses.
The core of the Bates method consists of a set of practices which Bates advocates term "exercises in relaxation" and "movement exercises" . "Exercise" is used in the same sense as "memory exercise" and does not imply muscle strengthening.
Several points-of-view exist about the use of eye exercises to treat vision problems.
- Traditional mainstream ophthalmologists and optometrists use eye exercises to treat a limited range of problems, particularly problems involving muscular imbalances and problems with coordination of eye movement between the two eyes.
- Functional optometrists and optometric vision therapists are licensed, credentialed doctors of optometry, who specialize in treatment that involves eye exercises. They hold that such exercises are useful in improving a wide range of visual conditions, including focussing problems. The methods used are said to be backed by clinical studies and publications in peer-reviewed journals.
- The Bates method differs from other health systems that use eye exercises in a way that can be categorized as alternative medicine. Like homeopathic medicine, the treatments used and the explanations of how they are said to work are rejected by mainstream medicine, despite personal testimony by people who claim to have been helped by such methods.
The Bates method emphasizes the practice of deliberate movements of the body ("swinging") with relaxed awareness of vision; cupping or palming the eyes with the hands; attempting to see or visualize perfect black; and exposing the eye to as much full daylight as possible.
Bates maintained that the eye focusses, not by the action of the ciliary muscles on the crystalline lens, but by varying elongation of the eyeball caused by the extraocular muscles. The eyes of some animals do, in fact, focus in this way, but the theory that human eyes do is rejected by mainstream biology and medicine.
The common procedure of eye dilation used during eye examinations provides evidence for the mainstream position. Dilation involves the use of eyedrops containing a drug which temporarily relaxes the ciliary muscles. The result is that the eye cannot accommodate at all. The eyes can still be moved to look in different directions, showing that the drug has not affected the external muscles of the eye. Therefore, if the Bates theory were correct, accommodation should still be possible. Bates supporters maintain that the method works regardless of the soundness of its theoretical underpinnings.
Martin Gardner, in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, characterized Bates' book as "a fantastic compendium of wildly exaggerated case records, unwarranted inferences and anatomical ignorance." He suggested that the Bates method may however work, to a limited degree, by increasing the trainee's ability to interpret and extract information from blurred images.
Detractors concede that most of the Bates techniques are harmless, apart from the possibility that faith in the Bates system could deter people with eye conditions requiring prompt care from seeking conventional treatment. (One of his original exercises, however, involved looking directly at the sun, which is very dangerous; a 1940 revision of his book modified by suggesting that the sun shine on closed eyes).
As of 2004, the growing interest in alternative medicine has led to an increase in the popularity of the Bates system of awareness of vision. Other methods claim success via visual training through eye exercises.
One particularly controversial area is the usefulness of eye exercises in the treatment of myopia (near-sightedness) and whether the use of eyeglasses makes myopia progressively worse.
Bates concluded that myopia was related to apprehension or what some may call "anxiety". He felt that good vision was nature's way and that any other way was a strained way of seeing.
The alternative medicine position is often seen as follows:
If a baby does not start walking at the normal age, we do not give him or her a wheelchair. Eventually, through practice, the expected outcome is achieved, with the legs becoming stronger. It has been said that for eyes, the wheelchair route (glasses) has been used instead of exercising.
The contraction and relaxation of the eye's ciliary muscle allows a person to change focus between objects that are near and those that are far. Bates advocates believe that viewing books, computer monitors, and other close objects may cause weakening of this muscle and lead to myopia. They claim various exercises outlined in the Bates Method can strengthen those muscles. Bates advocates also claim that the Tibetan eye chart has long been used for the purpose of helping to keep eye muscles toned and that acupressure techniques can be used to improve vision and increase circulation to the eyes.
The mainstream objection to this argument is that the ciliary muscles which control focussing contract to focus on near objects and relax to focus on distant objects. It is near focussing, not far, that exercises these muscles. Thus, the effect of weakened eye muscles ought to be farsightness (hypermetropia) rather than nearsightness (myopia). The negative lenses that are used to correct myopia cause the muscles to work harder than they would otherwise need to and might, if anything, be expected to strengthen them. Accommodation to distant objects is a passive process and does not involve the use of muscles. In distant accommodation, the ciliary muscles simply relax; accommodation results from the elastic action of the suspensory ligaments and the lens of the eye itself. Therefore it is difficult to see how strengthening the ciliary muscles could improve distant vision.
The Bates Method proposes that the myopic eye condition is not caused by weakened muscles, but by muscles that are being used improperly. It is suggested that when a myopic person focuses on distant objects, they are no longer relaxing the muscles used in accommodation. Instead, they are "straining" to see the distant objects with the same musuclar tension exhibited when viewing at the nearpoint. Dr. Bates believed that it was impossible to consciously relieve the eyes of this tensing and instead developed his method as means of effecting subconscious relaxation.
If the cause of myopia is continous tensing of the muscles, either ciliary or extraocular, the Bates Method theory is that it should be possible to cure (or noticeably improve) it by causing intentional relaxation of the muscles; a process most commonly done using injections or topical administration of atropine. The consensus on this, however, is that no significant improvement of the vision is obtained when muscles are relaxed in this manner.
Fundamentally the Bates method is said to require a holistic change in the way the body is used rather than any consciously applied eye exercises.
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