Rehabilitation of Visual Function After Brain Injury

Summary

In Denmark, about 120,000 people suffer from brain damage, of whom approx. 75,000 with brain damage after stroke. Serious and often lasting vision impairments affect 20% to 35% of people after stroke. Vision is the most important sense in humans, and even smaller permanent injuries can drastically reduce quality of life.

Vision impairments after brain damage inhibits rehabilitation and enhances other invalidating effects. Reduced vision results in impaired balance, increased risk of serious falls, increased support needs, reduced quality of life, and impaired ability to perform activities of daily living. Restoration of visual field impairments occur only to a small extent during the first month after brain damage, and therefore the time window for spontaneous improvements is very limited. Hence, brain-impaired persons with visual impairment will most likely experience chronically impaired vision already 4 weeks after brain injury and the need for visual compensatory rehabilitation is substantial.

Neuro Vision Technology (NVT) is an supervised training course where people with visual impairments are trained in compensatory techniques using special equipment. Through the NVT process, the individual's vision problems are carefully investigated and personal data is used to organize individual training sessions that practice the individual in coping with situations that cause problems in everyday life.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether rehabilitation with NVT can cause significant and lasting improvement in functional capacity in persons with chronic visual impairments after brain injury. Improving eyesight is expected to increase both physical and mental functioning, thus improving the quality of life. Participants included in the project will be investigated in terms of both visual and mental functions, including quality of life, cognition and depression. Such an investigation has not been performed previously and can have a significant impact on vision rehabilitation both nationally and internationally.

Conditions

• Stroke, Ischemic
• Brain Injuries
• Stroke Hemorrhagic
• Traumatic Brain Injury

Interventions

DEVICE

Neuro Vision Technology

Training using Neuro Vision Technology

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted (IBOS)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Copenhagen University Hospital at Herlev

  collaborator OTHER

• University Hospital, Gentofte, Copenhagen

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Karsten Overgaard, MD · Copenhagen University Hospital at Herlev

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

14 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-08-01

Primary Completion

2026-12-31

Completion

2027-07-31

Countries

• Denmark

Study Locations