Vision Evaluation Tools for Adults With Acquired Brain Injury: A Scoping Review.
Camille Dubé, Yu Jin, Brienne G Powers and 5 others
PMID 34658251WHAT IT FOUND
No single tool captures all visual deficits after acquired brain injury.
Occupational therapists mostly use tests for higher-level vision, risking missed basic problems like eye movement. Use multiple tools together and screen foundation skills first to avoid misidentifying deficits.
Key findings
01Most included studies used multiple evaluation tools or batteries rather than a single test.
02Occupational therapists primarily used tools assessing intermediate to high-level visual skills, while physiotherapists and vision specialists used tools for foundation skills.
03No included studies provided recommendations for the ideal timeframe to administer these visual evaluation tools after brain injury.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The review did not assess the quality of the included studies, so the reported psychometric properties should be interpreted with caution. Few studies from ophthalmology were included, potentially missing detailed physiological vision assessments. The age restriction (mostly adults) may have excluded relevant literature on traumatic brain injury in younger populations. Definitions of visual deficits varied across studies, making it difficult to standardise which tools were included.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. No funding was received.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a single high-level visual-perceptual test is sufficient for all patients. The review found that occupational therapists often use tools for complex visual tasks without first screening foundation skills, which can lead to misidentifying basic visual deficits as higher-order processing issues.