Visual symptoms can greatly impact your quality of life following a head injury. Understanding these issues is the first step toward effective treatment and recovery through neuro-optometric rehabilitation.
Head injuries such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), concussion, and whiplash can create a host of visual symptoms that affect quality of life. These symptoms are not always due to problems within the eye alone—they often stem from a complex interaction between the eyes and the brain’s processing systems. Understanding these visual disturbances is important for finding the right support and treatment to help restore comfortable and efficient vision.
When someone experiences a head injury, the delicate communication between the eyes and the brain can be disrupted. This disturbance often results in visual symptoms that extend beyond simple blurred vision. The brain’s ambient visual process—which helps orient us in space and integrates information from both eyes—can be significantly affected, leading to problems with depth perception, balance, and the stability of the visual field.
Many of these visual challenges occur because the brain must work much harder to properly integrate signals from both eyes. When the ambient process is compromised, even routine tasks such as reading or navigating through a crowded room become more difficult. Fortunately, our eye doctors are here to help guide you through understanding these issues and exploring potential solutions to improve your visual comfort and overall functionality.
Several visual symptoms are frequently reported after a head injury. These symptoms can vary from person to person, but there are several common signs that you should be aware of:
These symptoms occur because head injuries can affect the way that visual information is organized, leading to a reduction of visual comfort and efficiency.
Find a top optometrist near you to get started on your path to visual recovery today.
After a head injury, many factors can contribute to visual symptoms. One primary cause is a disruption in the sensory-motor feedback loop that underlies the visual process. This loop relies on smooth communication between the eyes, the visual processing centers in the brain, and other sensory systems such as the vestibular (balance) and proprioceptive (body position) systems.
The research has shown that the brain’s ambient visual process is responsible for organizing spatial information, guiding eye movements, and stabilizing what we see. When these functions are disturbed due to trauma, the amplitude in visual evoked potentials (VEP) measured during diagnostic evaluations tends to be reduced, indicating that the binocular cortical pathways are not integrating information effectively. This can result in symptoms like diplopia and blurred vision.
Another contributing factor is the strain placed on the focal visual process, which is essential for attention, concentration, and detail discrimination. When the ambient system fails to organize peripheral visual information accurately, the focal process must overcompensate, leading to visual fatigue, difficulties with reading, and an inability to quickly shift focus. Conditions such as convergence insufficiency, accommodative insufficiency, and oculomotor dysfunction have been observed in patients after head injuries, further complicating the overall visual experience.
Understanding the root of post-injury visual symptoms begins with a thorough diagnostic evaluation. Our eye doctors utilize a variety of tools to assess how well the eyes and the brain are communicating. One key method is the use of visual evoked potentials (VEP), which measure the electrical responses in the visual cortex to patterns seen through each eye.
During these tests, patients are typically examined under both monocular (one eye at a time) and binocular conditions, with and without corrective measures such as base-in prisms and bi-nasal occluders. The resulting amplitude changes in the VEP can indicate the degree of binocular cortical integration and whether the ambient visual process is functioning properly.
In addition to VEP testing, our evaluations include:
By combining these tests with a detailed history and clinical observations, our eye doctors can pinpoint the specific causes of visual dysfunction and design an individualized rehabilitation plan.
Find a top optometrist near you to get started on your path to visual recovery today.
Visual symptoms like blurred vision and diplopia can arise from head injuries. Discover neuro-optometric rehabilitation for effective recovery.
