Brain-based Therapies – 4-hour workshop Drs. DeAnn Fitzgerald and Amy Thomas

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Description:

2×2-hour workshop on Brain-based Therapies: Knowing How to Boost Your Therapies When Your Patient Gets Stuck with Drs. DeAnn Fitzgerald and Amy Thomas on July 9 from 11AM EST-3PM EST

Have you ever worked with a patient who just could not understand what you were trying to teach them even though you presented it from every angle and level that you knew existed? This course will teach you great ways to troubleshoot the problem areas in your patients’ brains and use techniques to stimulate or calm the brain regions that you are trying to access. These techniques have been used for decades by functional neurologists to quickly get to the root of the problem and better customize the treatments. This course will also show different technologies that you can implement in your office to improve success rates.

Bio’s:

Dr. Fitzgerald:

DeAnn Fitzgerald, OD, President, Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association

DeAnn Fitzgerald, O.D. is President of the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association (NORA), an inter-disciplinary group of professionals dedicated to providing patients who have physical or cognitive disabilities as a result of an acquired brain injury with a complete ocular health evaluation and optimum visual rehabilitation education and services to improve their quality of life.

Dr. Fitzgerald has been providing eye care to eastern Iowa since graduating from Pacific University School of Optometry in 1984. She runs a busy primary care clinic where she diagnoses and treats ocular disease and evaluates patients with brain injury. In 2007, she opened a multi-disciplinary clinic, Cedar Rapids Vision in Motion, which provides low vision services, along with concussion (diagnosis, management, and treatment), traumatic brain injury, stroke, and neurodegenerative disease (dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease) rehabilitation. By using total brain and body techniques with an emphasis on vision, vestibular and proprioception with auditory cues her clinic helps individuals achieve broader improvement in function. She recently launched her sports vision and concussion clinic, Active Evolution Studio.

Dr. Fitzgerald has a special interest in sports vision performance and concussion. She attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa where she played softball and basketball. At Pacific University, she went to the NCAA softball nationals two years in a row. She taught pitching and batting clinics and was umpire in chief of softball tournaments for high school students. Dr. Fitzgerald also played semi-professional softball in the 1980’s.

She has helped facilitate over 20,000 baseline testing for concussion in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the surrounding communities. Active Evolution Studio utilizes their Sports Vision Performance protocol to train the area amateur and professional teams in hockey, basketball, arena football, and soccer. Working with Metro Youth Football, which has 1,400 young people playing football annually, Dr. Fitzgerald has helped implement a baseline screening protocol with nearly 100% athlete participation. Her pre-season baseline and post-concussion care protocols have attracted attention from the National Football League.

Dr. Fitzgerald has lectured nationally about neuro-rehabilitation and concussion. She is CIC certified in ImPACT, which is a web-based product used in concussion management.

Dr. Fitzgerald is a member of American Optometric Association (AOA), Iowa Optometric Association (IOA), Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association (NORA), College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD), Optometric Extension Program Foundation (OEPF), and International Association of Functional Neurology and Rehabilitation (IAFNR).

Dr. Thomas:

Dr. Thomas was originally introduced to the functional neurology model about 8 years ago while searching for the best possible treatments for her patients, herself, and her family. She was fascinated by the connections that the functional neurologists had made between brain anatomy, physiology, and how a person functions on any given day. From these teachings, she has been able to grow Arizona Vision Therapy Center into a multimodal practice that is able to treat the mind, body, and senses to provide a full-scope treatment process for her patients. She has also created a Master Class called Brain-Based Optometric Toolbox (BBOT) to help teach other neuro-optometrists how to provide these services in their own practices.