Eye2Brain Academy

Stephanie Schwartz

Retinal Detachment

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Importance of visual rehabilitation following eye and brain injuries:

The addition of vision rehab early in the recovery process following a TBI or eye injury can significantly impact the short term and long term outcomes and success of safely returning to play and work. 

A recent example: Female high school soccer athlete came in with a history of a retinal detachment (including 3 surgeries). Main symptomatology – decreased reaction time and visual field deficits in the affected eye and the opposite eye due to fast onset of cataract. 

Goals include:

  1. Implementing and being comfortable with protective equipment
  2. Improving reaction time in both central and peripheral fields of available vision
  3. Safe return to ADLs
  4. Preventing further injury/loss of vision 

Within 5 weeks of this athlete performing sports vision training exercises 2x a week in our clinic she has improved her overall reaction time by 2.5 seconds! She no longer has to completely search for a target; she just sees it and responds. For a 15 year old girl with a full life ahead of her this could have been tragic, but because of her attitude and family support she was able to be proactive and take hold of her future. She has not missed a high school soccer game yet.

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Cerebellar Ataxia: What can we do to help?

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We have had multiple patients come in recently presenting with Cerebellar Ataxia. Some of their main symptoms have included balance and swaying with weight bearing activities, double vision, and a lack of spatial awareness. We have experienced good results utilizing full body vibration at varying frequencies, plantar surface vibration with oculomotor tasks, VOR (seated then standing), EHC with proprioceptive stances, prism usage, and crossbody movements with oculomotor tasks. 

Our patients demonstrate improved confidence with walking and less reliance on walking aids within just a couple of sessions utilizing these treatments along with others. We have seen improvements in double vision with using prisms and seeing results last after taking the prisms off.

Just like muscles and soft tissues, the cerebellum needs to move and be challenged so it does not shrink. Regardless of age, hobbies, limitations…

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Nutrition Part 3: Protein Timing

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Everyone in healthcare stresses protein intake, and if they don’t they should! What most don’t tell you is that the timing of protein consumption is also crucial to performance. Case example:

Athlete walks in for concussion rehab at 345 pm AFTER a full day of work. When she was unable to perform word association as well as she has previously, we asked how much protein she has eaten today. Her response sounded mildly defensive, but she did respond with a smile on her face when she said, “I just ate a protein bar on the way here, and had muscle milk for breakfast”. We estimated that this was about 1/4 of what her daily protein intake needed to be for her body weight.

The clinicians had a great discussion with the athlete about the timing of protein consumption. It is most important to start the day off with natural sources of protein and then consuming it evenly throughout the day so that there is no drop in energy level. It is also important to consider how much protein is consumed of an evening, because this increases sleep quality. 

If you are unsure what the definition of a “good” source of protein is, you can always ask us and work collaboratively for positive patient outcomes. 

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Patient Engagement

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Keeping patients engaged in their care can help with patient compliance, leading to better outcomes of care. So what are ways that we can keep them engaged during treatments and when not in our direct care?

Some ways that are successful include: 1) finding out what they are passionate about and helping them to stay active with that activity during recovery. Even if it’s only in small increments. 2) doing our best to keep the atmosphere in the clinic light and welcoming; doing this through fun activities. 3) different conversational techniques, including humor with the appropriate patient population. 4) making the treatment sessions as competitive as the patient is (i.e. If the patient is super competitive in nature then we focus on the scores and how the scores they achieve compare to other scores we’ve seen on the same activities. And if the patient isn’t very competitive, we keep it about how they are feeling with the activities and not the scores as their standard for progress.) Patient engagement is important in keeping them compliant with their care, and giving them the steering wheel in their recovery process. 
These are just a few examples. What are ways that you utilize to keep your patients engaged?

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Golf Master’s 2023

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Did anyone watch the Master’s this weekend? (April 6-9, 2023)

We did. And wow, what a show. It reminds me that even professional athletes are human, in reference to Jon Rahm pulling out a ham sandwich in the middle of the tournament. I will attest, I am not a huge golfer. In fact I have a hard time watching it because I don’t understand when an athlete has good form, bad form, or what a “good” shot looks like. Regardless of that, each professional (and amateur in this year’s tournament) golfer spend countless hours training physically with trainers, mentally, and actually on the golf course. Some also do sports vision training in order to get their eyes to sink the putt, or to use the appropriate force in their swing. Which takes depth perception and eye hand coordination. Sports vision training also strongly utilizes cervical positioning. What kind of sports vision exercises could you do in various cervical positions that are golf specific? 

While you think about that, let me give you some ideas: 

  1. Ball toss with cervical rotation
  2. Chart exercises in side plank. You could also have them do thread the needle with this to really work gaze stabilization after changing direction.
  3. Pursuits with eye hand coordination in cervical rotation at various distances and eye levels.

Although golf seems like a slower paced sport, it’s really not. It takes a significant amount of concentration, technique, and visual endurance to be above average at the sport. Next time you spectate golf, or participate yourself, think about what kind of visual requirements the sport takes and how you as a healthcare professional can improve those skills. Until next time…

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Massive Results

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20 yo college student/club volleyball coach presented to the clinic last week with a symptom score in the upper 20s, with the history of 7 concussions in her last 2 years of high school then went a year and half without 1. A month ago was hit in the face with a volleyball during a practice and got another concussion. Pt family member expressed observed symptoms of migraines and “spacing out” during conversations. The Pt was seen in the clinic 4x this week and received treatments including but not limited to: syntonics (AlphaOmega/MuUpsilon), PEMF mat with Huso sound waves, cervical and facial dry needling, EHC activities, saccadic exercises, and neuro entrainment/meditative therapy with intermittent compression. 

After roughly 4 years of struggling with symptoms from multiple concussions and receiving no formal treatment, the Pt left her appointment today with a symptom score of 1 (headache) and stated that she is feeling better than she has in a few years.
The plan is to continue to treat her concussion and graduate to a return to play protocol so she can continue to exercise and coach volleyball without any worries of symptom provocation.

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Unilateral Nasal Occlusion

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A couple of weeks ago we evaluated a patient that had been diagnosed with a concussion after falling to the ground when slipping her shoes off. She presents with all of the typical high scored symptoms: headache, nausea, visual fatigue, difficulty concentrating, difficulty remembering, but NO SLEEP DYSFUNCTION!!!! Phew, finally one without sleep dysfunction. 

Upon observation, we noticed that one eye was naturally more converged than the other. She was actually unaware that her left eye was set this way and reported no history of visual dysfunction. So…instead of using a binasal occlusion to increase bilateral divergence we decided to try unilateral nasal occlusion with the eye that was struggling the most with divergence. After application to the left eye, the occlusion instantly gave the patient mild headache relief and improved eye hand coordination. She was educated to keep it on until she became visually fatigued and then take it off at home. This patient was compliant and reports taking it off a couple hours after her appointment had ended. 

In order to keep progressing, we had to get this woman back to work. Along with our inter-professional blog post, she is working with her primary care physician on a return to work plan. She works full time utilizing 2 computer monitors to be effective and efficient in her job, however we all understand how this can cause symptom provocation, eye fatigue, and inhibit concussion recovery. We decided to utilize this unilateral nasal occlusion on her glasses during work hours to see if that would help in getting her eyes to work together and avoid over convergence. 

It worked! The patient was able to go from working 3 hours/day last week to 5 hours today (per physician order) with even less symptoms than she had before! She does take the occlusion off after work and continues to demonstrate an increase in visual endurance with eye hand coordination and ocular motor tasks. We plan to continue treating her 2-3x per week until she is asymptomatic and back to work without restrictions. 

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Working Inter-professionally

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In our clinic, we work collaboratively on multiple cases with other healthcare providers to help our patients get better as quickly and safely as possible. Working with doctors of different specialties (i.e. Neurology, sports medicine, orthopedics, etc.), physical therapists, and athletic trainers is essential in returning our patients to normal ADLs and sport participation. The tricky part is getting all involved parties on the same page and keeping them on the same page, that way no one is stepping on the others toes and hindering the advancement of the patient’s recovery process. This can be difficult when days get busy or when one person out of the care team does not communicate care with the other. 

Example: an athlete is being seen for concussion recovery and is attempting to complete a return to play protocol (which is a minimum of 5 days, 24 hours asymptomatic between each day). The athlete also has another injury, unrelated to the concussion, that they are seeing another care provider for. Even though these injuries are unrelated, they do affect the body’s physiological response! To return this athlete to play, we had to put a hold on her other therapy so that it did not affect her ability to finish this 5 day protocol.

Continuing to strengthen communication skills, both written and verbal, is a big factor in keeping everyone working towards that patient’s goal. And then documenting what the patient’s goals are, keeping inter-professional communications in the patient’s electronic or paper chart, and taking the time to look at those charts to remind ourselves of where the patient is at in reaching those established goals.

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Happy Friday from Dr. Fitzgerald!

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Good morning everyone! Hope your Friday is happy and healthy. I spoke about the z-vibe as a tool to help get patients in a better position to be able to do more therapy. Vibration as a whole, and utilizing the z-vibe, allows us to  contribute to improved outcomes. This is a very powerful tool in helping patients with balance issues. We will be starting the monthly webinars with emphasis on therapy protocols. Stay tuned for those protocols and how to implement them in your practice. With nearly 7.8 million people a year reporting concussion, there is absolutely plenty of folks that need our help. And with the literature supporting that vision is affected in 90% + of folks, we are in big demand. And anyone helping in concussion management, I do not know how we can do treatment without a thorough eye exam. Keep posted. Happy Friday!!

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Cerebral Spinal Fluid Leak Case Study

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Now 70 year old male tells his story of an injection gone wrong…7 and a 1/2 years ago he went in for a lumbar spine epidural and he ended up with a cerebral spinal fluid leak. This has caused constant, 24/7, headaches that are reported to be all over the head and very severe. 

After being evaluated by Dr. Fitzgerald, OD at Dr. Fitzgerald & Associates, he was referred to complete a Multi-Sensory Reset Therapy (the Vision In Motion Pinnacle Program for those of you that know of it). Throughout the 12 day program, he was dry needled by an Athletic Trainer 2-3 x per week to relieve head pressure and allow the cerebral spinal fluid to flow. The patient states that he felt the largest impact from dry needling than he ever has with any other treatment. 

He continues to receive treatment 1-2x per week during the 1 month period between the end of the MSRT program and his re-assessment with Dr. Fitzgerald, OD. These sessions consist of eye hand coordination exercises, specifically noted benefits from tossing a ball with a partner, and dry needling. 

This patient continues to report improvements in his chronic headaches; that they now occur only at the end of the day. AND that some times he goes days without one at all! Can you imagine going through the trauma that this man has, understanding that he will always be in pain due to the injection gone wrong, and then wake up without headaches multiple days in a row?! That is the power of combining treatments appropriately, utilizing your medicine team, and incorporating a 360 degree health program. 

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