Focus Builder

Focus Builder is optimized for use on an iPad.

Category	Price	Seller	Device
Medical	$39.99	NeurdSolutions, LLC	iPhone, iPad, iPod

Eye movements are a very powerful way to exercise the brain and to create long-term change in the brain, known as plasticity. The “Focus Builder” app contains a variety of exercises which challenge users to voluntarily move their eyes in various patterns, speeds and directions, which have been proven to activate specific parts of the brain depending on which eye movement is performed.

This app is specifically designed for doctors that specialize in Functional Neurology and their patients. There is currently no app available that can provide these specific exercises. For best results, patients should consult a Functional Neurologist to determine how to use this app according to their needs and obtain the most therapeutic value.

There are 3 types of eye movements that can have profound therapeutic benefits and all three are available in this app.
1.Pursuits (slow eye movements): Smooth pursuit eye movements allow the eyes to closely follow a moving object. Most people are unable to initiate pursuit without a moving visual signal. The pursuit of targets moving with velocities of greater than 30°/s tend to require catch-up saccades.
2.Saccades (fast eye movements): Saccades are quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction. Initiated cortically by the frontal eye fields (FEF), or subcortically by the superior colliculus, saccades serve as a mechanism for fixation, rapid eye movement, and the fast phase of optokinetic nystagmus.
3.Anti-saccades (look away): The anti-saccade task has emerged as an important task for investigating the flexible control that we have over behavior. In this task, participants must suppress the reflexive urge to look at a visual target that appears suddenly in the peripheral visual field and must instead look away from the target in the opposite direction. A crucial step involved in performing this task is the top-down inhibition of a reflexive, automatic saccade. Patients diagnosed with various neurological and/or psychiatric disorders that affect the frontal lobes or basal ganglia find it difficult to suppress the automatic pro-saccade, revealing a deficit in top-down inhibition.

The areas of the brain that are activated by these eye movements are too numerous to list, but to name a few, I have listed some of the functions that can improve with these eye exercises.
1.Executive function/behavior
2.Attention
3.Concentration
4.Impulse control
5.Social behavior
6.Motivation
7.Goal directed behavior

Reviews

DO NOT BUY THIS
OhNoItsWood

This application has a really nice app icon and description and IT ENDS THERE. This app is GARBAGE. The menu is less than plain. The "eye exercises" consist of a dot blinking across the screen in a horizontal line. To put it simply, a mentally challenged child (no offense to children or the mentally challenged) could make this with their eyes tied behind their back. I don't have ADHD, but I was still inclined to buy this app to improve my eye focus and coordination. One good thing did come from this though: I'm going to be making an application of my own that will blow this out of the water. Look out for it.

Clearly unfinished
I suuuuck at Starcraft

Instructions lack clarity and are too long. I have no idea how I am supposed to use this. There is no navigation or settings within each exercise, so the app must be restarted if anything needs to be changed, or if a user needs to move to the next exercise. There is no warning that it is set to continuous by default.

love the results
PapaBravo

I use this app as recommended by my doctor, and helps a lot even though it seems awfully simple.

its effective, expensive, and lacks a basic function
arunth62

It works, its effective and its expensive. You'd think that for a forty dollar app, you'd get the option to set a time limit. I need to use one of the functions for one minute and only one minute. However, there is no way to set it to turn off after one minute, or five minutes, or any minutes. It just keeps running. And the link in the App Store for customer support, doesn't work, instead you get. - 404 page not found.

Loses settings!
mlekenyon

My functional neurologist recommended this app, and I've been faithfully using it three times a day for three months. Not an unenjoyable experience, except that it keep losing its settings, especially after restarting my iPad. Using Save As does no good, and even deleting and reloading it didn't help. Fortunately, I can remember the correct settings, but it's a pain having to adjust the settings so often. Oddly, Pursuits and Pursuits & Saccades lose their settings, but Random Saccades never does

Excellent App
concussiondoc

This App is indispensable for treating altered eye and brain dysfunction for post concussion patients. For those that gave the app a poor review you have to have someone trained in functional neurology to program the exercises for you. After examining a patient and observing their eye movement problems I prescribe specific exercises to correct the weaknesses. This allows patient to rehab at home between visits. The app clearly states that a functional neurologist should guide the patient through proper exercise prescription, otherwise the app will not make sense to the user. We have helped a large number of patients with this app in my clinic.