Dr. Brian Abert, O.D. FAAO and Dr. Deanna Pedroza, O.D. founded Vista Eye Care in 2010 right here in Thornton, Colorado. From the beginning, they made it their goal to be family eye care practitioners. But what does it mean to be a family eye doctor? What sets our practice apart is the wide range of conditions and ages that we care for. From 6 months on up, we see a variety of patients with a variety of needs.
Babies depend on their eyes to experience the world and to learn. Without a perfectly functioning visual system, children might have issues that are difficult to correct later in life. Our eye doctors, like the American Optometric Association, believe that early-life eye check-ups are crucial to the development of not only a child’s sense of vision, but also to their ability to learn and read. We recommend a child’s first eye exam at 6-12 months of age to test vision, check for congenital disorders, and to check for findings that may lead to amblyopia.
School-aged children deserve special attention because they are learning the subjects that will help them succeed later in life. Most kids that need glasses end up needing them in their elementary school years to correct nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism. This age may also develop a binocular or focusing issue that might impair coordination, or the ability to comfortably read. It’s hard to learn to read if you have trouble seeing the words on the page! For this reason, we recommend that children be seen yearly.
Teenage children are often taking more involved classes that require more reading and concentration. With this increased coursework also comes participation in sports on a more serious level. Vision is particularly important in basketball, baseball, volleyball, and football, and as a student’s competitive abilities increase, so does the need for more optimal vision. Often times this is the ideal age to start wearing contact lenses!
Working-aged adults have often settled into life at work, and it is crucial that they see comfortably and clearly to function at their best. Sometimes occupation-specific vision correction is utilized to provide optimal vision and comfort. Some patients in this age group are good candidates for LASIK or PRK, corneal refractive procedures that can reduce a patient’s dependency on glasses or contact lenses. We provide all the pre-operative measurements and post-surgical health assessments necessary to be sure that LASIK is a safe and ideal option for your vision needs.
Older adults need specific care relative to their eyes. Glaucoma tends to be more of a concern in older patients, and Vista Eye Care utilizes state-of-the-art technology to diagnose and manage this potentially blinding eye disease. Older adults are the most common age group to have their vision be affected by cataracts. Vista Eye Care provides pre and post-operative care for cataract surgery patients.
Of course, all ages can suffer eye injury, infection, dry eye, and allergies, and we are here to help. The advantage of annual eye check-ups is that we can usually diagnose these issues before they worsen and become more difficult to treat. We fit specialty contact lenses on all patients that need them, including patients with post-operative corneas, keratoconus, and pellucid.
People often consider glaucoma, cataracts, and macular degeneration as being diseases of only older patients, though every patient should be concerned about eye health. We utilize the latest techniques and technologies to determine your risk for getting macular degeneration for example, and show our patients how to prevent it. Keeping your eyes healthy doesn’t mean waiting for disease, it should also mean doing what you can to prevent it, and that’s what Vista Eye Care is all about.
When we say that we are family eye care office, we refer to the wide range of ages we examine and conditions we treat. Of course, having children of our own gives new meaning to family eye care, and our patients are often treated to pictures of our own wonderful family. Mention Sophia or Nathaniel, and Dr. Abert and Dr. Pedroza are quick to show you their kids’ latest pictures! Please call us today at (303) 450-2020, or click the button below to schedule annual eye exams for your family, or schedule your child’s first eye exam with us! We would be honored to be your family’s eye doctors!
