New Studies on Hemianopia and Driving

2 studies about driving with hemianopia / quadrantanopia have just been published by Cynthia Owsley's group in Birmingham, Alabama.

The first, "Self-reported driving difficulty by persons with hemianopia and quadrantanopia", published in Current Eye Research (Link to PubMed) found that people with hemianopia / quadrantanopia who were unsafe to drive didn't report any more difficulty driving than those rated safe (both reported more difficulty than people with normal visual fields).

The second, "Hemianopic and quadrantanopic field loss, eye and head movements, and driving", published in Investigative Ophthalmology and Vision Science (Link to PubMed) found that people with hemianopia / quadrantanopia rated as safe to drive made more head movements into their blind field, with more stable lane keeping and less sudden braking. The authors suggest clinical trials training these characteristics. Perhaps they'll run one. Watch this space!

Visual impairment is more than just vision

2 interesting studies published recently show that limitations experienced by visually impaired adults are not all about visual ability.

The first, by Alma and others (Quality of Life Research, June 2011) found that social participation in visually impaired older adults was not determined by visual ability, but rather by age, physical fitness, helplessness, social network size, and how important people viewed participation in particular activities.

The second, by Tabrett and Lathem (Investigative Ophthalmology and Vision Science, May 2011) looked at limitation in daily activities relying on vision. They found that self-reported limitation was affected by visual acuity, but also significantly by depression and adjustment to vision loss.

For people working with visually impaired adults this is a helpful reminder that we need to look at more than how good their vision is!

National Stroke Awareness Month

May is National Stroke Awareness Month in the USA. They've released the Faces of Stroke in a bid to raise stroke awareness. See the the National Stroke Association web site.

Also, the FAST campaign to raise stroke awareness has been re-released in the UK. Follow this link.

Krystel Huxlin (University of Rochester) on rehabilitating visual motion perception

European Stroke Conference, Hamburg 2011

The European Stroke Conference will take place in Hamburg this year, 24-27 May.

For details, see this web site.

For those with an interest in vision, see teaching course 6, Tuesday 24 May, 15:30-17:30:
 "Stroke syndromes of the posterior circulation"
Includes talks:
Brain-stem ischemic stroke eponyms – an update
J.S. Kim, South Korea
Oculomotor presentations of brain-stem ischemia
D. Kömpf, Germany
Ischemic stroke patterns in the posterior cerebral artery territory
R. Kern, Germany

RNIB Stroke and Vision

Web page from the RNIB (Royal National Institute of the Blind, UK) describing visual problems due to stroke.  Follow this link.

Tuebingen visual search / saccade training programme (VISIOcoach)

The University of Tuebingen Low Vision Clinic produces a saccadic training programme for patients with hemianopia, VISIOcoach.  It encourages saccdes into the blind hemifield.  It's based on this 2009 publication in the journal Neurology.  It costs around 300 Euros + tax.  The authors don't have any financial interest (which is reassuring).