Telerehabilitation for visual field defects with a multisensory training: a feasibility study.
Nadia Bolognini, Lorenzo Diana, Angela Rossetti and 10 others
PMID 39994637WHAT IT FOUND
In 26 adults with chronic homonymous visual field defects, home-based audio-visual scanning training improved visual search accuracy and speed, reading, and daily vision-related difficulties, with gains persisting to 6 months.
It did not enlarge the visual field.
Key findings
01Visual search accuracy improved from 82.2% at baseline to 88.8% after training and 88.9% at 1 month, and remained stable to 6 months.
02Vision-related daily living burden fell from 10.4 at baseline to 7.1 after training, 6.6 at 1 month, and 7.6 at 6 months on a 0 to 40 scale.
03Visual field size showed a change over time, but it did not survive the statistical checks for multiple comparisons, so enlargement was not demonstrated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
This was a single-arm feasibility trial, so improvements could be influenced by expectation, practice, or other factors; the small waitlist double baseline only checked stability before treatment. Of 30 recruited, 26 were analyzed and 20 completed the 6-month follow-up. The home versus in-person comparison used a subgroup and a separate unpublished sample, with different training panels and timelines, so it cannot establish equivalence. Only the central 30 degrees of visual field were tested, so peripheral visual field changes cannot be excluded. Mood gains were measured in a sample whose baseline depressive symptoms were not clinically significant.
Declared interests
The supplied text states that the funder was Ministero della Salute. It does not report additional author conflicts.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this training restores lost visual field. The visual field size change was not statistically reliable after correction for multiple comparisons, so the gains reflect better scanning, not visual field regrowth.