Traumatic brain injury is often accompanied with visual complications. After suffering a traumatic brain injury that presents complications to the visual system, patients symptoms can be treated very effectively with vision therapy.

What kind of traumatic brain injury conditions can vision therapy treat?

Among the common traumatic brain injury conditions that vision therapy can treat are

• Accommodative disorder is a problem with focusing, particularly at near. There isn't so much a problem with eyesight as keeping a comfortable, accurate focus, particularly when working up close.
• A condition such as convergence insufficiency can cause someone to get headaches or have double vision when trying to do things up-close.
• Additionally, vision therapy can help those who have difficulty tracking their eyes, a condition called ocular motor deficit. Therefore, they lose their place either on paper or on their computer when they try to read, which can make performing their jobs difficult.
• Another condition that vision therapy can help with is visual field loss. Such a person has hemianopsia and loss of visual field on the right or left side of the body. They may need help in learning how to understand where they are in space. In some cases we will prescribe prism glasses alongside vision therapy for patients with visual field loss.
• Vision therapy can also assist with visual spatial attention when the brain is no longer paying attention to the left or right visual space as it used to.
• Visual therapy can also be helpful in cases of visual midline shifts, in which an individual thinks they are in one place while actually they are in a different one. As a result, you may often observe people shifting to the right or left as they walk down the hallway.

What is syntonic phototherapy?

The branch of ocular science known as syntonics, or optometric phototherapy, entails the application of specific light frequencies through the eyes. In optometry, it has been used for over 70 years to treat a variety of visual disorders, including strabismus, amblyopia, focusing and convergence problems, learning disorders, and the effects of trauma and stress. This can be done standalone by itself or is most commonly done in conjunction with an in office vision therapy regimen as well.

How long does neuro-optometric rehabilitation take to work?

The answer to this question is not easy because it depends on the nature of the problem, which is different in each case. Some level of improvement is to be expected fairly quickly, though a complete turnaround should not be expected overnight. It takes time for neuro-optometric rehabilitation to retrain the eyes and brain to work together as they should, especially if the injury causes severe problems. In addition, compliance with the treatment measures is crucial in order to achieve the desired results. Much of the rehabilitation is performed in the office, but patients may also be required to do exercises at home.