Treatment of Vertical Heterophoria Improves Post-Concussive Symptoms
abstract
This abstract is available on the publisher's site.
Access this abstract nowPrimary objective
To examine the effectiveness of neutralizing prismatic lenses for reduction of headache, dizziness and anxiety in patients with persistent post-concussive symptoms and vertical heterophoria (VH).
Background
Approximately 5–10% of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) develop persistent post-concussive symptoms. Many rehabilitation/treatment modalities are tried, but are largely unsuccessful, indicating a need for more effective treatment.
Design and method
This retrospective study included 38 patients with persistent post-concussive symptoms, who were diagnosed by an optometric binocular vision sub-specialist with VH (a sub-set of binocular vision dysfunction [BVD] that manifests as vertical eye and image misalignment). Data was collected both before and after prism application and included validated survey instruments for headache, dizziness, anxiety and BVD symptom burden; subjective rating (0–10 scale) of headache, dizziness and anxiety severity; and a sub-analysis of the BVD survey instrument questions that pertain specifically to headache, dizziness and anxiety. Upon conclusion of treatment, subjective assessment of overall improvement of heterophoria symptoms was obtained utilizing a 10 cm visual analogue scale.
Outcomes
Results demonstrated marked reduction in all measures of headache, dizziness and anxiety (19.1–60.8%) and an overall subjective improvement of VH symptoms of 80.2%.
Conclusions
Neutralizing prismatic lenses are an effective treatment of headache, dizziness and anxiety in patients with persistent post-concussive symptoms and VH.
Click on any of these tags to subscribe to Topic Alerts. Once subscribed, you can get a single, daily email any time PracticeUpdate publishes content on the topics that interest you.
Visit your Preferences and Settings section to Manage All Topic Alerts
Additional Info
Treatment of Vertical Heterophoria Ameliorates Persistent Post-Concussive Symptoms: A Retrospective Analysis Utilizing a Multi-Faceted Assessment Battery
Brain Inj 2016 Feb 01;[EPub Ahead of Print], MS Rosner, DL Feinberg, JE Doble, AJ RosnerFrom MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.