If you’ve hit your head when you fell, or while playing sport, or in an accident, your vision may have been impacted.
Around 75% of people who've experienced concussion have a problem with their vision – sometimes its eyestrain, or blurred vision.
Head Trauma
Head trauma causes your brain to move in the skull. Your vision relies on the efficient communication between your brain and eyes. Concussion can disrupt these neural pathways, affecting your vision. It can cause temporary or long-lasting vision-related symptoms.
You may think the problem is with your eyes. While some severe injuries could cause permanent damage to the optic nerve, it’s more likely a communication problem between the brain and the eyes as a result of the concussion.
How Does a Concussion Affect Vision?
Anything that impacts the brain can severely affect our ability to see clearly.
If you have a head injury from being in a traffic accident or a serious fall, that injury can impact the communication between our eyes and brain.
A person with a concussion may have dilated pupils, droopy eyelids, or difficulty tracking objects. Sometimes, these symptoms are obvious, but not always. They may also have difficulty concentrating, light sensitivity, depth perception issues, memory loss, or blurry vision.
How Long Do Visual Problems Last After a Concussion?
Usually vision problems from concussion don’t become noticeable for some time, appearing weeks, months or even years after the original incident.
Any person who has had a concussion should be assessed by a neuro-optometrist, even if they’re not experiencing any obvious visual problems.
What Is Post Trauma Vision Syndrome?
This is when you experience problems with your vision following a severe head injury.
It could involve:
- Focusing problems - changing focus from close to far or keeping your vision clear
- Depth perception - difficulty judging distance or the relationship of one object to another
- Eye-tracking – finding it hard to following an object or text on a screen or page
- Peripheral vision – unable to see things from the side of the eyes
- Eye alignment – your eyes aren’t aligned correctly or point in different directions
What Treatments Improve Vision Following a Concussion?
After a concussion you may be prescribed one of these treatments to help you see better:
- Prescription lenses – especially for blurry vision
- Prism lenses
- Precision tinted lenses – alleviate visual discomfort, visual stress and visual information overload with coloured filters.
- Neuro-optometric therapy – a customised eye exercise program designed to rehabilitate your visual skills
How Developmental Optometrists Treat Concussion Vision Symptoms
Step 1: Conduct a functional vision test
A functional vision test includes more than testing to see if your eyesight is 20/20. A developmental optometrist will test all three of the visual skill areas that make up functional vision. In some cases, all three visual skill areas may be affected, which is why this comprehensive test is required.
Step 2: Develop a plan for treatment
Based on the functional vision exam results, a treatment plan may include the following:
Prescription lens:
Lenses can help improve or eliminate the blurry vision that can result from a concussion. In other cases, a combination of lenses and therapy will be prescribed.
Syntonics:
Using light therapy to restore balance to the autonomic nervous system and improve the visual skills.
Vision rehabilitation:
A program of exercises and activities to improve how you use your vision.
In some cases, the concussion may have caused permanent injury to the area of the brain that controls eye focusing. In these cases, these treatments may not alleviate the blurred vision. However, the treatments may help the patient compensate for the loss by maximizing the efficiency of their other visual skills.
