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Functional vision in children with perinatal brain damage
Sonja Alimović1, Nikolina Jurić, Vlatka Mejaški Bošnjak
1Mali dom - Zagreb , Center for Rehabilitation, Zagreb , Croatia and.
Insights
Functional vision, crucial for daily activities, is often impaired in children with perinatal brain damage. Visual stimulation programs significantly improve functional vision and visual attention in these children.
Area of Science:
- Ophthalmology
- Pediatrics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Cerebral visual impairment in children with perinatal brain damage often presents with preserved basic visual functions but impaired functional vision.
- Functional vision, encompassing everyday visual task performance, has been under-researched compared to basic visual functions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the significance of assessing and stimulating functional vision in children affected by perinatal brain damage.
- To emphasize the importance of visual attention as a key component of functional vision.
Main Methods:
- Assessed visual functions (grating visual acuity, contrast sensitivity) and functional vision (visual attention, communication) in 99 children with perinatal brain damage and visual impairment.
- Evaluated children before and after a targeted visual stimulation program.
Main Results:
- Children exhibited significantly greater deficits in functional vision than in basic visual functions.
- Visual stimulation led to significant improvements in functional vision and contrast sensitivity, with minimal change in grating acuity.
- Enhanced visual attention strongly correlated with improvements across all other visual functions.
Conclusions:
- Functional vision assessment, particularly of visual attention, is essential for the early monitoring of children with perinatal brain damage.
- Visual stimulation programs can effectively enhance functional vision in this population.
Unlabelled:
Many authors have discussed the effects of visual stimulations on visual functions, but there is no research about the effects on using vision in everyday activities (i.e. functional vision). Children with perinatal brain damage can develop cerebral visual impairment with preserved visual functions (e.g. visual acuity, contrast sensitivity) but poor functional vision.
Objective:
Our aim was to discuss the importance of assessing and stimulating functional vision in children with perinatal brain damage.
Methods:
We assessed visual functions (grating visual acuity, contrast sensitivity) and functional vision (the ability of maintaining visual attention and using vision in communication) in 99 children with perinatal brain damage and visual impairment. All children were assessed before and after the visual stimulation program.
Results:
Our first assessment results showed that children with perinatal brain damage had significantly more problems in functional vision than in basic visual functions. During the visual stimulation program both variables of functional vision and contrast sensitivity improved significantly, while grating acuity improved only in 2.7% of children. We also found that improvement of visual attention significantly correlated to improvement on all other functions describing vision.
Conclusions:
Therefore, functional vision assessment, especially assessment of visual attention is indispensable in early monitoring of child with perinatal brain damage.
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