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Fortius profile: Kevin Loopeker, optometrist

For Fortius Sport & Health eye doctor Kevin Loopeker, vision is about more than seeing clearly. It’s about function. “You can have great clarity, but it doesn’t mean your visual system is functioning very well,” he said.
Fortius, Kevin Loopeker
Fortius Sport & Health optometrist Kevin Loopeker prepares to demonstrate the power of the Burnaby centre's Nike SPARQ Sensory Performance Station.

For Fortius Sport & Health eye doctor Kevin Loopeker, vision is about more than seeing clearly.

It’s about function.

“You can have great clarity, but it doesn’t mean your visual system is functioning very well,” he said.

Take a child who has perfectly good vision but whose eyes have problems tracking.

No type of corrective lens will fix the problem.

Fortunately, there are things that can be done, and that’s where Loopeker’s interest in the function and development of vision comes in.

It’s a philosophy that departs from the traditional, optics-based optometry practised in Canada, he said, and explains why the Richmond native spent much of his professional life before 2003 in the U.S. – first at Pacific University College in Oregon to get his doctorate of optometry and then at the State University of New York to earn a certificate of advanced clinical competency in vision therapy and rehabilitation.

In New York, Loopeker spent a year helping people with brain injuries and learning disabilities with vision rehabilitation.

It might seem like a strange fit for someone who always knew he wanted to focus on sport vision, but Loopeker said it’s not.

“The two are meshed together,” he said.

Working with kids on tracking, focusing and visual attention, for example, he said he has seen kids make gains in school and sport alike.

“After doing training with this, not only did their academics improve, dad would come back and say, ‘Hey, Johnny can finally hit a baseball.’”

So, when Loopeker came back to start his own clinic in Richmond 11 years ago, he continued his work on both fronts, gaining a reputation in both the education and sport realms, presenting to homeschoolers and at teacher professional development days, as well as working with high-level athletes.

In 2012, he earned a diploma in sportvision practice through Sportvision UK.

It was his work under the SportMedBC umbrella that got him plugged into the Fortius project.

“Basically this was eight years in the making,” Loopeker said of the Fortius performance vision centre.

Asked if the expensive, state-of-the-art facility was a hard sell to the other founders, Loopeker said the potential was clear to them, even if it hadn’t always been on their radars.

“I don’t think it was a hard sell,” he said. “I think some lightbulbs went on.”

For more information about the Fortius team, visit www.fortiussport.com.