Answer:

“Does a convergence insufficiency affect someone’s progress in VRT? Absolutely. So what ends up happening is that, as I talked about before, we have two concepts that are probably behind NPC. So NPC is very much a spatial type of problem. So if we don’t know where we are in space, if we’re using more of the typical type of vestibular rehab, my humble opinion is that if we stay at that level, we’re not going to be able to get that patient better. And once again, I would suggest using dorsal parietal types of peripheral activities in order to help that.

One of the ways you can do that depending upon the age of your patient, but if you can have that patient lie down on the floor, and then you begin to do your vestibular types of trainings. We understand that in a supine position, it’s not going to be holding as you get up because of gravity, but there is some memory involved in there. So I would start with a lying down position if you can, and then have them seated. When you can’t use a lying down position, that’s where we’re looking at these weighted vests, a t-shirt one size too small, that sort of thing.”

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RESOURCES & LINKS:

• This Q&A is an excerpt from the Vestibular Health Summit Sessions
• The Vestibular Health Summit Sessions are included with 360NeuroGO Enterprise

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FACULTY:

DeAnn Fitzgerald, OD

DeAnn Fitzgerald, O.D. is Vice President of the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association (NORA), an inter-disciplinary group of professionals dedicated to providing patients who have physical or cognitive disabilities as a result of an acquired brain injury with a complete ocular health evaluation and optimum visual rehabilitation education and services to improve their quality of life. Dr. Fitzgerald has been providing eye care to eastern Iowa since graduating from Pacific University School of Optometry in 1984. She runs a busy primary care clinic where she diagnoses and treats ocular disease and evaluates patients with brain injury. She recently launched her sports vision and concussion clinic, Active Evolution Studio. Dr. Fitzgerald has a special interest in sports vision performance and concussion.