Rehabilitation of reading and visual exploration in visual field disorders: transfer or specificity?
Reading and visual exploration impairments in unilateral homonymous visual field disorders are frequent and disabling consequences of acquired brain injury. Compensatory therapies have been developed, which allow patients to regain sufficient reading and visual exploration performance through systematic oculomotor training. However, it is still unclear whether the reading and visual exploration impairments require specific compensatory training for their improvement. We present the first cross-over rehabilitation study to determine whether the training-related performance improvements are task-specific, or whether there is a transfer of training-related improvements between reading and visual exploration. We compared the therapeutic effects of compensatory oculomotor reading and visual exploration training in 36 patients with unilateral homonymous visual field loss in a cross-over design. In addition, we explored whether the training sequence determines the overall treatment outcome. Our findings demonstrate that the training-related improvements in reading and visual exploration are highly specific and task-dependent, and there was no effect of training sequence.
Department of Clinical, Biological and Differential Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. susanne.schuett@univie.ac.at
Susanne
S
Schuett
Charles A
CA
Heywood
Robert W
RW
Kentridge
Ruth
R
Dauner
Josef
J
Zihl
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000601:surgery; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000150:complications; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D018592:Cross-Over Studies; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009886:Ophthalmoplegia / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D015348:Vision, Binocular / Q000502:physiology; D015349:Vision, Monocular / Q000502:physiology; D058609:Visual Field Tests; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology