Day 186 - Sunday June 17, 2012

Dorothy sent me a text and said I should order a book about vision therapy, Eye Power by Ann Hoopes.  It turns out that Ann Hoopes actually called Vern about some things (what are the odds) and when they heard about her book they talked to her about Bridgett's vision problems.  Anyway, I got the book and read the whole thing (it's only about 150 pages long) and it was so interesting.  One things it said in the section on TBI...."Visual-perceptual dysfunction is one of the most common devastating residual impairments of head injury" (Barbara Zoltan, MA, OTR/L). There is a name for the collection of problems and symptoms that affect the functional visual system after a head injury....post trauma vision syndrome (PTVS).   Common symptoms include:

• double vision (diplopia) Bridgett comments that she is not having any double vision
• blurred near vision This is getting so much better and she can read regular print now
• print seems to move I don't know if she had this or not
• eyestrain (asthenopia) Initially she had a lot of eyestrain but not a problem now
• headaches Initially she had a bunch of headaches but almost never now
• sensitivity to light (photophobia) No longer sensitive to light
• dizziness, vertigo, balance problems No longer dizzy or having balance issues
• nausea No longer having nausea and even carsickness is better
• attention or concentration difficulties Better able to concentrate
• staring behavior (low blink rate) that causes dry eyes Never had this that I noticed
• spatial disorientation Getting better all the time
• loses place when reading Only if she looks away from the page
• difficulty finding the beginning of the next line when reading No longer having problems
• comprehension problems when reading Comprehending reading just fine
• visual memory problems She is remembering more of what she is reading all of the time
• pulling away from objects when they are brought close Don't remember this being a problem

Remember all of my frustration with no one recognizing how severe Bridgett's vision problems were.  You'd think that therapists would have a little more training in these problems with vision since apparently they are more common than everyone seems to think.  I am just glad that many of these problems are resolving and I guess it's because of the visual exercises that we are doing with Bridgett daily coupled with the whole time element and I expect things to continue to improve.

There is also a syndrome called vision midline shift syndrome (VMSS) that can occur that causes TBI patients to misperceive their position in their own midline.  This causes the visual perception to be compressed in one portion and expanded in another portion therefore the world appears slanted, or tipped and walls may appear bowed and distorted which causes patients to lean to one side or forward or backward.  Remember Bridgett initially leaned to the left side but this corrected over the weeks at the rehab.I do not know if this was the problem, but anyway overall her balance is now great!