Multisensory Rehabilitation of Vision Loss After Cortical Damage

Multisensory Rehabilitation of Vision Loss After Cortical Damage

Damage to visual cortex on one side of the brain frequently produces a profound and permanent blindness in contralesional space (hemianopia), a debilitating condition that causes enormous suffering for patients and their families.

The over-arching objective of the current proposal is to evaluate the functional recovery of vision in hemianopic (blindness in one hemifield) and quadrantanopic (blindness in one quadrant) patients engaged with a multisensory training paradigm. This will pave the way for clinical trials in which this simple, non-invasive training paradigm can be developed for therapeutic use to treat blindness resulting from cortical damage.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients will be recruited from the local subject population hospitalized/seen by Ophthalmology, Neurosurgery, and Neurology at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist
• diagnosis of stable homonymous hemianopia (>4 weeks) with absence of hemineglect
• a lesion encompassing at least primary visual cortex but sparing parietal cortex, to include lesions caused by an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke or post-surgical changes due to an oncologic or non-oncologic tumor
• normal or correctable auditory and cognitive function
• willingness to participate in the three-month program
• ability to perform visual discriminations in their intact field
• life expectancy ≥12 months

Exclusion Criteria:

• diagnosis of an unstable homonymous hemianopia and/or with hemineglect,
• Abnormal or uncorrectable auditory and cognitive function
• unwillingness to participate in the program
• inability to perform the visual testing in their intact field
• life expectancy < 12 months
• Any other condition that would compromise their ability to complete the study.