Does Vision Therapy Help Concussions?

The brain controls all the primary functions and parts of your body. Any injury to it due to a stroke, vehicle accident, or concussion will hamper its ability to perform its functions. The most impact may be on your visual system, resulting in various life-changing symptoms.

Here's how vision therapy helps treat these injuries, especially concussions.

What Are Concussions?

A concussion is a medical term that refers to a traumatic injury to your brain. It comes from the Latin word concutere, which loosely translates to shaking violently. It is often a result of an abrupt bump or blow to your head. 

The sudden impact on your skull jolts it and causes your brain to move inside your head. The traumatic blow can result in injury to nerves, damage to blood vessels, and bruising. Another result is brain malfunction that affects your vision and other bodily functions.

What Is Vision Therapy?

Vision therapy is a treatment program that helps strengthen and improve visual skills. These include focusing, eye-hand coordination, eye-tracking, convergence, and visual processing. The primary goal of the treatment is to help children know how their brains control their eyes. It helps kids who have various vision issues. 

Although it may seem like a simple eye exercise, vision therapy improves eye-brain communication and the overall effectiveness of the visual system. Vision therapy also has practical implications in helping treat the persistent symptoms following a concussion.

Concussion-related Vision Symptoms

These include:
 

• Constant headaches or migraines.
   

• Visual field loss.
   

• Difficulty reading.
   

• Eye pain.
   

• Double vision.
   

• Sensitivity to light.
   

• Inability to track objects.
   

• Poor depth perception.
   

• Failure to change focus between objects.

Vision Therapy and Concussions

Post trauma vision syndrome is a collective term for all insistent concussion symptoms. Your eyes may seem physically healthy after a traumatic event, but they may falter communicating with your brain. Such a scenario is usual following a traumatic brain injury. Another term for vision therapy after concussions is neuro-optometric rehabilitation.

Neuro-optometric Rehabilitation Therapy

The initial treatment of brain injuries often overlooks vision problems. The reason is regular eye exams do not indicate the extent of damage to the eyes' functioning and vision processing. Consultation under a neuro-optometrist involves more thorough tests than an eye exam. 

They test your depth perception to determine the level of communication between the brain and the visual system. The doctor analyzes how the injury impacts daily activities like reading, movement, and balance. If they discover structural damage, you may have to visit an ophthalmologist.

The treatment is a noninvasive therapy session aiming at rehabilitating your vision and integrating it with your other senses. It also checks on visual information processing and visual-motor disorders. After this, they will develop a rehabilitation plan that suits your predicament. The treatment may involve therapeutic vision exercises. They will continue to add more of them as they monitor the improvement of your eyes.

Therapy sessions may include near and far exercises, smooth pursuits, fixation exercises, saccade exercises, and pencil push-ups. These may have to occur several times a day to improve your chances of a better vision. It also encourages your brain's natural healing abilities.

For more on how vision therapy helps in concussions, visit Southwest Orlando Eye Care at our Orlando office. Call (407) 271-8931 to book an appointment today.