Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1000484
such cases, a standard vision improvement involving the use of glasses will not work. This is where an optometrist comes in to help those suffering from acquired brain injuries (5). The abovementioned conditions are typical of a post-traumatic vision syndrome. It is one of the most common effects of a TBI. Symptoms may also involve problems with: alignment of the eyes, oculomotor skills, convergence, accommodation, concentration, focus, visual-spatial deficits related to body motor impairment, reduced blinking rate, eye watering, and – one of the most difficult conditions to rehabilitate – post-traumatic visual field defects. The latter may result from e.g. a lack of mental ability to perceive objects, loss of perceptive-cognitive awareness of objects, and even a partial loss of awareness of one's own body, also because of impairment of visual centers. In the everyday life, the condition may manifest itself in many ways: problems with reading and activities performed at close distances, impaired visual memory, eye strain, photophobia, impaired spatial vision, defect of the sense of location of objects, problems with balance, motor skills, and coordination, an overall sense of fatigue, aversion to crowded places, dry eye syndrome and the related conjunctivitis or inflammation of the eyelid margins. F What to remember about? It's quite common to see delayed occurrence of disorders typical of PTVS; that's why it's so important to monitor the condition of the injured when brain damage is suspected. Every specialist may describe the results of the conducted examination, including their observations and recommendations. Such document becomes a part of our health record, which often proves helpful in further diagnostics. To supplement the part of the article devoted to vision, I'd like to describe cases of three different patients whose visual symptoms were linked directly to brain injuries: 1. A woman, aged 50, fell down the stairs two months ago, in a coma for two weeks. Vision disorders, balance disorders, slight emotional disorders. She was in the process of rehabilitation, taken care of by a physiotherapist. A big problem in physical movement exercises was her constant double vision. The woman's daughter, who brought her for examination, learnt only on the spot that such accidents might change one's psyche, personality, motivation – everything that worried her about her mother since the day she was dismissed from the hospital. Not everyone finds it obvious! Nobody told her earlier about the after-effects that might take place. The condition of the sight organ was not checked, no additional diagnostics was recommended. After the woman was prescribed a pair of spectacles with appropriate prismatic correction factor (in some cases, they help to remove double vision) and designing a plan of optometric visual rehabilitation, the double vision disappeared. In addition, her balance started to improve too. 2. A 20 year old sportsman, complaining about problems with near vision for a year. In the interview he mentioned a car accident he had a year before, without any complications found. When he was asked whether he saw any correlation between the accident and the moment of appearance of problems with reading, he responded, irritated: "No! I had tests which excluded any post-traumatic disorders". Further examination revealed that the ability of his eyes to look at close objects was very limited, with the acceptable limit value exceeded almost three