Traumatic Brain Injury Vision Problems: Common Symptoms and How TBI Vision Problems Are Treated

Vision problems are common after a concussion and can remain for months, or even years, if left untreated. More than 50% of our brain is dedicated to vision and studies show that more than two-thirds of concussion patients experience some impairments related to vision. Post-trauma vision syndrome (PTVS) may affect your ability to read, focus, and maintain attention. It can also cause symptoms that are indirectly related to vision, such as dizziness and headaches. PTVS results from a constellation of long-term effects from trauma, including dysfunctional brain signaling and autonomic dysfunction. Most of these conditions will not resolve with vision therapy alone; it needs to be combined with other therapies to address your symptoms holistically.  As vision therapy can and will improve your symptoms, it is just one part of the solution.

Different parts of your brain play different roles in the visual process. For example, when you look at your mobile phone your brain controls the muscles in the eyes that allow you to focus your gaze on a specific point. The image on your phone reaches special cells in your eyes called rods (cells responsible for your peripheral vision and night vision) and cones (cells responsible for your color vision and vision detail). In turn, these cells send this information through the optic nerve to the occipital lobe. The parietal lobe is also involved in the visual process and is responsible for depth perception and knowing where you are in space. The temporal lobe, which is associated with memory, allows you to recognize what you’re looking at from the raw visual information coming from your eyes. The eyes are also an important part of your balance system (also known as your vestibular system which is the “balance center” located in your inner ears); information from your peripheral vision travels to the brainstem, which is involved in spatial orientation.  Spatial orientation includes information about your surroundings, where you are in the room, where objects are relative to you, and how you can move through the space. 

Causes of vision problems after traumatic brain injury

There are four main causes of vision problems after traumatic brain injury:  dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), neurovascular coupling (NVC) disruption, pre-existing visual dysfunction, and mismatched signaling.  These changes are often functional rather than structural and cannot be detected by medical imaging. Treating the root of the problem is paramount to successful treatment as treating vision deficits in a vacuum will not resolve traumatic brain injury vision symptoms.

The most effective way to treat traumatic brain injury symptoms is to perform specific exercises that are designed to retrain your brain and body to function efficiently. Specifically there are 5 systems these exercises will retrain: 

• The Neck

• The Visual System

• The Vestibular System 

• The Autonomic Nervous System

• The Cognitive System

Properly retraining each of these systems will help your brain and body to heal so that you can get back to being you and doing the things that you love to do. 

To learn more about how to treat traumatic brain injury vision problems visit The Concussion Solution: Master Program.  The Concussion Solution: Master Program is virtual online treatment program that is systematic and based on current research and follows the American Physical Therapy Association’s published clinical practice guidelines of weaving together the different systems that are affected by concussion (mild traumatic brain injury). You can also visit our clinic in Park City, Utah.

Questions? Call 203 822 2098 or email annie@happybrainpt.com

Further Reading: What Does a Concussion Headache Feel Like