Every athlete works out in the weight room, in the pool, on the track, or on what ever skill they are trying to prefect. However this is only a small portion of being successful. What are all the additional pieces to the puzzle: metal aptitude, genetics, balance and coordination, and/or accurate dynamic visual acuity? The answer is yes, they all play a role in predicting success, allowing an athlete the capability of performing at their individual extreme.

Here at Ears of Texas, PA, we help athletes develop a portion of their athletic ability by optimizing their natural talents and hard work. A team of specialized physicians and an athletic trainer have modified medical protocols that were initially developed for patients with balance and dynamic vision abnormalities. The primary objective of these protocols was to return patient, with balance and dynamic vision problems, back to a normal level of activity that included simple living tasks. As patients progressed back into their normal lives, we quickly realized that a majority of patients responded very quickly to the rehabilitation protocols and were actually able to achieve better than average result in both balance and dynamic visual acuity. With the use of advanced diagnostic equipment and very specific exercise, tailored for each patient, a rapid progression occurred that enhanced the body’s own mechanism for balance and dynamic visual acuity. As a result, we develop sports specific protocols used for athletic enhancement, focusing attention on increasing balance through sensory, reflex, and motor pathways as well as the vestibular ocular reflex (VOR), optokinetic (OKN), and visual fixation. Our protocols focus attention on your individual dynamic postural stability and visual system as they relate to your specific sport. Sports specific exercises are developed based on the athlete’s individual biological and athletic needs.

Training an athlete’s vestibular system is the newest means of high tech performance enhancement that make “the difference”. Athletes that say “I can see the seams on a baseball as it is thrown” or “The rim stays perfectly still as I move across the lane” are telling the truth. Their vestibular system has developed to a point where their body can dynamically move while keeping a correct sense of body awareness and their eyes focused and still. Training the athlete’s vestibular system to function at an optimal level allows for: increased balance and coordinated beyond the levels that can be achieved by core strengthen alone, increased and enhanced dynamic visual acuity allowing the athlete to see better during movement, and we believe a better all around trained athlete. Enhancing the vestibular system is what will separate great athletes from good ones, “the difference”.

CDP Protocols
The many different protocols are used to evaluate the athlete’s sensory functions, natural reflexes, and adaptive abilities. CDP provides a differential assessment balance through the following three protocols:

The Sensory Organization Test assesses the athlete's ability to make effective use of visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive information and to appropriately suppress disruptive visual and/or proprioceptive information under sensory conflict conditions.

The Motor Control Test assesses the athlete's ability to reflexively recover from unexpected external provocations quickly and with appropriate movement patterns.

The Adaptation Test assesses the ability to modify reflexive motor reactions when the support surface is irregular or unstable. Each of these protocols is administered and analyzed under programmed control of a computer.

Vestibular Autorotation Test (VAT)
As a direct result of advancement in medical technology, we are now able to accurately measure reflexes of eye movement in relation to head/body movement. The Vestibular Autorotation Test (VAT) is a computerized test based on 18 seconds of active head movements to evaluate both the horizontal and vertical vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). The VOR is the oculomotor control system that stabilizes our eyes during head rotation, causing the eyes to move in the opposite direction of the head. This natural reflex stabilizes our vision and prevents images from moving as our head and/or body moves. The main purpose of the VOR is to allow clear vision during movement by sending signals to move the eye muscles to compensate for the small rapid head movements that occur in everyday life. As a result, specific exercise can be developed to enhance the ability of an athlete to focus on a target well they are moving in their sport.

Computerized Neuropsychological Testing (ImPACT) for Athletes:
ImPACT is a software tool developed to help sports-medicine clinicians evaluate the recovery process following a concussion. Athletes should be testing in the pre-season to establish a baseline normal for each individual athlete. The ImPACT program evaluates and documents multiple aspects of neurocognitive functioning including memory, brain processing speed, reaction time and post-concussive symptoms. The computer based test is completed in roughly 20 min, allowing for user-friendly injury documentation that facilitates the tracking of the injury from the field through the recovery process from concussion.