Restoration vs. Compensation in Neurovisual Rehabilitation of Visual Field Defects

Visual field defects (VFD) are a frequent effect of cerebral lesions especially after posterior cerebral artery stroke. The present study was conducted to compare effects of vision restoration training (VRT) and compensation training (Visual Exploration Training, VET) on visual field performance.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Visual field defects after brain damage
• lesion age above 6 months
• documented brain lesions due to ischemic stroke, hemorrhage or tumor demonstrated by computer tomography or by magnet resonance imaging

Exclusion Criteria:

• hemispatial neglect
• complete blindness
• severe psychotic diseases
• serious drug abuse
• chronic degenerative diseases (dementia, multiple sclerosis)
• severe motor impairments
• noticeable low intelligence influencing proper comprehension of diagnostic and training instructions
• considerable impaired vision (visual acuity below 0.1 generated by amblyopia, opacity of cornea or lens, maculopathy and other retinal diseases where vision impairment is expected in the next month (e.g. subretinal neovascularisation, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy)
• inability to fixate due to central scotoma, pathological nystagmus or other forms of fixation disabilities