Your evaluation at Siwoff Low Vision Center will be concerned with your total health status and how your status affects your vision. Your health includes your level of fatigue and your mood and motivation. How motivated are you to improve your eyesight? If you obtain new eyeglasses, are you willing to practice with homework for a few weeks to strengthen your eyes? What is your general mood and attitude about your vision status? We also will be interested in how you organize and process your visual world. For example, are you able to read? If so, can you follow from one line to the next or do you get lost? When you look at a page, do your eyes dart around or are you able to scan from the beginning of the line to the end of the line. There is a cognitive therapist working on the Siwoff team.
Rachel-Rose Siwoff, MA-LPC,BCPC, is a Board Certified Professional Counselor, licensed by the Board of Marriage and Family Therapists. She has had post-graduate training in family therapy and cognitive therapy, with a specialty in cognitive behavior of individuals with head injury, stroke, dementia, etc., as well as children and adults with developmental disabilities. She was formerly a primary therapist with Headways, Inc. and Director of Cognitive Behavioral Services at the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center in Andover, NJ. She opened up a school, the Andover Institute, for residents of this center. At Siwoff Low Vision Center, Rachel-Rose consults on our team primarily with patients who have motivational, mood, behavioral issues or learning deficits that preclude them from following medical advice. These services are included in the low vision overall evaluation and treatment and are not billed separately. Siwoff Low Vision Center also provides homework, graded text, stories, etc., as well as instructions, training, and small items of equipment at no charge to patients.