The visual system is often adversely affected when the brain is injured by trauma (e.g. auto accidents), stroke, or brain tumors. Since eighty percent of the information we receive about our environment is from the visual system, vision problems significantly impair a patient's functioning.

You need to see correctly to function correctly because the eyes guide the hands and body. Many brain injury patients feel spatially disoriented because they are either missing part of their visual field, or because their depth perception is altered. Until recently, patients suffering from vision impairments related to brain injury were told that there was no treatment available. A new field called Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation can help brain injury patients regain as much visual skill as neurologically possible.
Patients who suffer from brain injury such as strokes, tumors or head trauma, often sustain long-term functional deficits. These deficits include difficulty talking (aphasia), walking, poor fine motor control, and diminished cognitive abilities.

Visual skills, and activities dependent on visual information can also be profoundly affected, because vision guides movement. When visual skills such as tracking, focusing and depth perception are impaired, this interferes with daily activities such as reading, driving, reaching, writing, eating, or walking down stairs.

Symptoms of brain injury-related visual impairment include:

double vision
poor judgment of distance while driving or reaching for objects
frequent loss of place while reading
skipping words
sensitivity to light
vertigo
fluctuating vision
bumping into objects
decreased depth perception
leaning to one side
eyestrain

Appropriate eyecare is essential for this community. This may include specially prescribed glasses and / or Optometric Vision Therapy which is the treatment for these visual motor and visual perceptual defects. Impaired visual skills need to be re-learned through exercises the same that way large motor skills, such as walking, are re-trained through physical and occupational therapy. Through Visual Rehabilitation, a patient can be trained to use his or her eyes correctly again. This gives hope to the thousands of brain injury patients who are desperately looking for ways to regain their independence and quality of life.

As a Board Certified Fellow of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development, Robert Lederman is using innovative new treatments to help patients regain their ability to read, drive and perform everyday tasks after brain injury.

At The Vision Center, we evaluate patients to determine how their vision was affected, then prescribe a variety of treatments to help improve their vision. One such treatment involves the use of special glasses, called prisms, to help expand a patient's peripheral vision if they have a hemianopsia (reduced side vision). We also work with the patients' occupational and physical therapists to help the patient relearn sufficient visual skills to drive safely again. Visual skills are important for stopping correctly at a stop light, staying in the middle of a lane, changing lanes, and avoiding obstacles on the road.

Since 80% of the information that we receive about our environment is through the visual system, it is paramount that impaired visual skills are identified early and re-trained. This helps the overall rehabilitation process by maximizing motor and daily activities that are dependent on visual skills.

For more information, please refer to the website for the Neuro Optometric Rehabilitation Association at: http://www.nora.cc