After a stroke or a brain injury, many people face a variety visual disorders that may have a heavy impact on daily life, making activities such as reading, steady walking, or driving more difficult.
The good news is that visual rehabilitation and the use of specific aids can reduce these difficulties and promote better adaptation.
What can happen to sight after a brain injury?
According to the statistics, about 60% of people who suffer a stroke have some type of vision-related problem, the most common being:
• partial or complete loss of part of the visual field (hemianopsia), in which the ability to perceive half of the visual space (on the right or left) is lost;
• visual neglect, a condition in which the brain “ignores” part of the space;
• oculomotor disorders, which may cause double vision or difficulty in coordinating eye movements.
There may also be physical or cognitive limitations that make daily activities, such as reading, writing, or independent movement, even more complex. Because these disorders do not always improve spontaneously, visual rehabilitation may play a key role in the recovery process.
Rehabilitative treatment is based on a multidisciplinary approach, which is needed to deal with the complexity of post-stroke visual disorders.
The goal is to promote the recovery or compensation of lost abilities by stimulating neuroplasticity and activating environmental adaptation strategies.
With regard to sight, personalized exercises are proposed, which aim to stimulate compromised visual areas and enhance visual exploration strategies.
Now, remote rehabilitation systems make at-home treatment possible: dedicated devices allow the therapist to treat people remotely and adapt exercises based on progress.
When necessary, optical aids such as filters or prisms can be prescribed to improve perception of the environment or to correct disorders such as diplopia (double vision).
Modern assistive technologies, equipped with speech synthesis, also allow printed or digital texts to be read aloud. These devices facilitate activities such as reading books and newspapers, writing documents, sending emails, navigating online, and accessing digital services.
One of the many activities proposed by the Cavazza Institute is evaluation of the possible role of multisensory visual learning, an approach based on an integrated system of visual, tactile, linguistic, and auditory stimulations.
This methodology, already successfully applied to visually-impaired and blind people, promotes a profound reorganization of processes involved in perception, cognition, and assignment of meaning to reality and its representations.
This “cognitive gymnasium,” which stimulates residual capacities and promotes new methods of sensory integration, is now also being considered in cases of stroke outcomes or other brain injuries for its potential in supporting recovery processes.
Personal services
Assessment of aids and consulting for the blind and visually impaired
Ausilioteca
A place to discover and work with aids to increase personal autonomy.
Limitless
This project, for people over 65, teaches how to use computer tools to make daily life easier.
Educational consulting
Provides support to students, families, and teachers for training needs and inclusive education.
For information:
+39 051.33.20.90
ausilioteca@cavazza.it
ipovisione@cavazza.it - sce@cavazza.it
Italiano
.png "Aderente alla Consulta tra le Antiche Istituzioni Bolognesi"){kind=logo}