She could now see for the first time, with her own eyes, what her problem was. This was something the neurologist could not show her.
I have a patient who had an unfortunate injury. While having a mammogram performed, she was experiencing severe pain and passed out. The patient fell hitting her head on a concrete floor and was knocked unconscious for a period of minutes. When she awoke, she had extreme dizziness, unsteady gait, headaches, confusion, and delayed reaction time. She was the CEO of a company, very well educated, a real hard charger. She noticed, nearly immediately, that she could not function normally since her injury. She was evaluated in the ER and had an MRI. Fortunately, there was no intracranial bleed or fracture of the skull.
She was diagnosed with severe post-concussive syndrome. She explained that she no longer recognized herself. She was frustrated with an inability to read. She was quick to anger. She was college-educated but reading at a fourth-grade level. Her reading comprehension was shot. She was referred to a neurologist who had told her these symptoms would be temporary, but they had lasted several months already, and she was becoming increasingly frustrated and impatient with her inability to read and comprehend things that she used to do with ease. She was forgetful, and often misplace things. This was never a problem before in her life. She was always the one with the organizational skills, the one with the good memory, the type-A multi-tasker.
She came to the Eye Center of Virginia as she sought us out for the clinic's reputation in neuro-ophthalmic disease diagnosis and treatment. RightEye was new to our practice at the time, so we had limited patient experiences with this technology. We believed in the science but were anxious to see it work on actual patients. The patient underwent a standard functional EyeQ evaluation and was prescribed the EyeQ Trainer to be done twice daily for two weeks and asked to return for re-evaluation. The patient was at first frustrated with the exercises, she felt that they were too difficult. The EyeQ training regimen just highlighted her deficiencies, which initially made her feel worse about herself and her predicament.
We re-evaluated her progress two weeks later, and the initial reassessment was not a good one. She had multiple deficiencies in horizontal tracking, fixation, horizontal saccades and visual recognition and reaction time. It was explained to the patient that this was exactly why she was having difficulty with reading. She could now see for the first time, with her own eyes, what her problem was. This was something the neurologist could not show her. He could only explain in the most basic terms what had happened and could not offer any hope for a speedy recovery. He told her that the recovery could take many months in severe post-concussive syndrome. She grew impatient, as no real treatment was given, and the only prescription was rest.
She continued with the EyeQ Trainer exercises every two weeks returning for re-evaluation. After about a month things really started to turn around for her. Her Functional EyeQ scores improved dramatically. She progressed from the dysfunctional to the functional level. Everything was improving. Her circular tracking, horizontal tracking, horizontal saccades and fixations improved the most. She was less frustrated. The patient was noticeably less anxious and more communicative. What was important was that she was noticing the change. As she progressed, she admittedly had good days and bad days. But she had seen enough improvement that she signed on for a monthly renewable program with unlimited access to EyeQ Trainer, and she continues to see improvements daily in her function.