Colour vision loss among disabled workers with neuropsychological impairment

Test performance on a neurobehavioural battery was examined with respect to acquired colour vision loss among patients with a history of neurotoxin exposure. The study group included 14 men and 7 women with clinically diagnosed neuropsychological impairment (mean age: 41.3 +/- 8.1 years; mean educational level: 13.4 +/- 1.4 years). Verbal and visual ability, memory and psychomotor function were assessed with the California Neuropsychological Screening Battery. Colour vision was assessed with the Lanthony D-15 desaturated colour arrangement panel. Acquired dyschromatopsia was present in 17 patients (80.9%), 11 of whom manifested patterns of Type II colour vision loss. Simple regression analysis of neuropsychological test performance with respect to colour vision loss, using age-adjusted Z-scores, revealed significant relationships (p less than or equal to 0.05) solely for tests which rely heavily on the visual system. Significant differences in visual task test scores were also observed with the type of dyschromatopsia (Kruskal-Wallis, p less than or equal to 0.05). These findings suggest that poor performance on visual tasks and colour vision loss may both result from damage to neuro-ophthalmic pathways or that loss of integrity of the peripheral visual pathways may affect visual task performance. The authors propose that visual testing should be incorporated into neurobehavioural test batteries.