EyeWorld Magazine Reports on Study That Shows VRT Can Help Restore Vision in Stroke and TBI Patients
03/28/2007
Study finds hope for those blinded by stroke
03/28/2007-Researchers said that a recent study supports evidence that people partially blinded by a stroke or brain injury may be able to improve their field of vision by teaching new parts of their brain to see, according to a report by Reuters, printed in Financial Express.
03/28/2007-Researchers said that a recent study supports evidence that people partially blinded by a stroke or brain injury may be able to improve their field of vision by teaching new parts of their brain to see, according to a report by Reuters, printed in Financial Express.
About three-quarters of patients in the study could see better after six months of treatment with the therapy that uses a computer workout program for the brain. The program trains neighboring brain cells to take over for damaged areas, the report said.
Marketed by NovaVision (Boca Raton, Fla.), the therapy received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 2003 and is controversial among neurologists as it challenges the largely held belief that vision lost through brain injury or stroke can’t be treated, the report said.
According to the report, a German study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology in 2005 found the therapy a flop.
However, NovaVision said the latest study, conducted on patients in the last two years, reinforces its contention that the treatment works. The company said the results of the therapy proved the brain is plastic, capable of rewiring itself even long after an injury, the report said. “It makes no sense to believe there is no plasticity in the visual cortex,” said Jose Romano, M.D., a neurologist at the University of Miami who conducted the study and serves on NovaVision’s scientific advisory board. Vision restoration therapy could help the 1.5 million stroke or brain injury victims in the United States who have visual defects that make everyday tasks like reading and watching television a challenge, the company says. Romano and colleagues evaluated 161 patients who underwent treatment at 16 U.S. research centers for six months, Reuters reported.