Brain injury patients rarely imagine an optometrist will be part of their therapy team.
And if visiting an optometrist for a brain injury seems like a stretch, consider Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital:
This nationally recognized hospital in Lexington, which treats nearly 8,000 patients annually from nearly every county in Kentucky, refers patients to Dr. Rick Graebe’s Vision Therapy practice in Versailles.
As an example, Graebe recalls one referral, a woman who suffered a stroke and was frustrated by previous trips to other optometrists.
Those eye doctors administered the standard eye chart exam and declared her vision healthy. She knew otherwise.
“She came to the office and read the bottom row of the eye chart and then said, ‘There’s a door over there, it’s white, but I can’t tell you whether it’s two feet or 20 feet away,’” Graebe said.
Because of the brain injury, she had lost depth perception. She felt unstable and unsure of herself -- a typical experience for many brain injury patients.
“When the cuts and scratches disappear, people think brain injury patients are OK,” Graebe said.
“But they don’t feel OK. Their vision is not giving them an accurate picture of the world.”
The official diagnosis is Post Traumatic Vision Syndrome.
For treatment, Graebe offers therapeutic activities that can restore brain functions.
Patients wear special lenses and prisms while performing certain exercises in an effort to retrain the brain.
“A statistic I keep coming back to is 70% of brain cells are directly or indirectly related to vision,” Graebe said.
A second part of the treatment involves giving the patient compensatory tools to help deal with this new disability.
“If patients know they have lost, say, some of the right side of their vision, we recommend they sit on the right side of a movie theater or avoid making sharp right turns at the grocery store,” Graebe said.
It’s all part of the education process, he said.
Brain injury patients might not imagine an optometrist in their future, but connecting with the correct eye doctor can make all the difference.
“The most rewarding thing for me is helping patients who have been told there is no hope,” Graebe said.
“When we help them restore these functions, patients, who are part of a neglected population, no longer feel like a victim.
“They learn that they can take control and get their lives back.”