Emergency situations that lead to interaction with the police can be frightening, confusing, and traumatic for young children. Brookside Optometric Group, Stockton Sunrise Rotary, and the Stockton Ports are collecting donations of new stuffed toys for Stockton Police officers to give to children. Stop by our office in the month of June during normal business hours to drop off a toy. You can also make a donation at upcoming Stockton Ports baseball games. Each toy donated will help make a stressful situation just a little bit easer for a local child.

Does your child have poor vision, or do they just like sitting close to the TV? Poor eyesight can be difficult for parents to detect. In this episode of Eye Talk, Dr. Leila Chow outlines some things that parents should be watching for as their kids grow.

Then, it's baseball season! In our community spotlight, Dr. Bob Melrose talks with Christine Bowling of the Stockton Ports about the upcoming season and the Ports' long history in Stockton.

Finally, Dr. Rosemary Melrose discusses her support for the Stockton Walk to End Alzheimer's, and how Alzheimer's disease has affected her personally.

In this inaugural episode of Eye Talk, Dr. Bob Melrose and Dr. Yolanda Scheer discusss the unique aspects of children's vision. When should children have their first eye exam, what is your optometrist looking for, and how do we even test the vision of kids who don't know their letters? We also explore the vision challenges for older kids who are now spending a large portion of their day on digital devices.

Plus, Dr. Rosemary Melrose explains the latest research in vision care for diabetics.

Pink eye and red eye are common eye conditions and have various causes ranging from infections, allergies, irritantants, and styes.

Mild cases of pink or red eyes get better on their own, but moderate or severe cases need further attention. If any of the following symptoms are present, it is highly recommended to have it assessed by an optometrist: very red eye, decrease in vision, painful eye, sensitivity to light, or any discharge from the eye.

Clear and comfortable vision is essential to a child’s ability to learn, develop, and play. Any number of issues with the eye health or vision can limit their ability to learn in school, participate in sports, and their ability to navigate the world around them.

When babies are born, they already have the “hardware” necessary for vision, but the hardware still needs to be programmed. Babies are in the dark before birth, so the visual stimulation they experience, particularly between birth and age 2, is key to quality of vision for the rest of their lives.

Normal development for infants and toddlers

• Newborns see best at 8 to 10 inches (the distance to a parent’s face) but only in black & white
• By 6 months old, the eyes should be coordinating (looking in the same direction) and tracking objects. Color vision is improving.
• By 1 to 2 years old, depth perception and eye-hand coordination should be developing

My area of specialty is pediatrics. I love working with children! During my rotations in Optometry School, I discovered that it takes different skills and techniques to work effectively with children. Working with kids felt natural to me, and I felt I could make a difference by providing the highest quality vision care for children.

The most rewarding part of my job is getting to know families, providing them with clear eyesight, and being able to offer education on how to maintain good eye health. I enjoy building relationships and being able to watch as families grow over the years.

First and foremost, let me unequivocally state that I hate the term “Lazy eye”. That term always sounded to me that if a patient just stopped being ‘lazy” they would see better. This is far from the truth.

“Lazy Eye” is the common name for a condition we call amblyopia which is a permanent decrease in the ability of a patient’s eye to see 20/20 vision, even with glasses or contacts. Amblyopia is caused by one of four conditions during childhood when the visual system is still developing.

It is hard to believe that getting our kids ready to go back to school is something we have to think about in mid-July. However, as school calendars have changed, parents have to plan earlier and earlier for the new school year.

A solar eclipse is a phenomenal spectacle that everyone should make the effort to see, and the eclipse of August 21, 2017 promises to be one of the most amazing of our lifetieme. Your mother's (and your optometrist's) advice about not looking directly at the sun still applies. Here are some tips that you should keep in mind. You can get more information about safely viewing the eclipse from NASA.

It’s hard to believe that here, in the peak of summer, some school districts will be resuming classes in July, and the rest will go back to school in August. For many students, there may be almost as much demand on their vision when they are off during the summer. With summer preparation requirements for AP and Honors Classes, possibly increased periods of intense video-gaming, or even more extreme summer exposure to sun, wind, and sports—a student’s eyes get a work-out all year long!

Now, more than ever before, there are greater numbers of children with special needs and challenges in the classroom. Many of these children, particularly those with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder (ADD) and high functioning autism (Asperger’s), have average and often above-average intelligence. But regardless of their IQs, they often struggle in school because their brains process information differently than others. Given that more than 25% of the brain is devoted to processing vision, it is not surprising that visual processing issues are often among the processing differences of the special needs child. Failing to address these visual processing issues makes the child’s learning experience more difficult than it needs to be. Sometimes it may be a combination of both visual processing and visual function (seeing, focusing, tracking, eye coordination) that is contributing to your child’s difficulty. The optometrist can help to identify what is the appropriate intervention, including treatment, therapy, and/or coordination of care with other professionals such as speech and language therapists, reading specialists and programs, neuropsychologists, behavioral therapists, specialized tutors and others.

If you are a parent like me and have ever wondered “when should I first take my child to see the optometrist”, you are probably not alone. Many parents decide to take their children to the eye doctor for their first eye exam when they fail a vision school screening or the vision screening at the pediatrician’s office. However, there are great benefits to bringing your child in for a comprehensive optometric examination long before the presentation of a suspected or apparent vision issue.

Now that our kids are back to school it is important for parents to feel confident that their child is seeing clearly to optimize his or her learning experience. An estimated 80 percent of information processed in school is through vision. When most people think about seeing clearly, they think of visual acuity, or being able to see “20/20.”

It's another of those hot central valley summers and many of us are choosing to keep cool by enjoying watersports. Boating, wave running and swimming are all excellent ways to beat the heat but there are a few things we all need to watch out for when it comes to our eyes and our eye health.

School is back! And it’s time to make sure your child can learn by making sure they can see well. Many kids who do not do well in school often need glasses to improve their vision in order to help them see the classroom board or to decrease eyestrain while reading.  If a child has a difficult time learning in school, is unable to comprehend material, or has a short attention span, it could possibly be the result of a vision problem. Before any child is diagnosed with a learning disability, he/she is required to get an eye exam first. Here are some common vision problems: Near-sightedness is the condition that blurs objects in the distance, but objects up close remain clear.Far-sightedness is not the exact opposite of near-sightedness. Instead, it is the condition that blurs objects up close and in the distance, but the eye muscles have the ability to...