Stroke survivors may be saddled with an invisible disability known as spatial neglect – but a simple treatment offers significant improvement
Stroke survivors may be saddled with an invisible disability known as spatial neglect – but a simple treatment offers significant improvement
About half of those recovering from a stroke or a brain injury have spatial neglect. But prism adaptation therapy – noninvasive and easy to administer – can help.
Treating spatial neglect through an approach called prism adaptation therapy actually increases the patient’s ability to move and track the affected limb, and can even reduce pain affecting the bad side.
The therapy is simple to administer, using off-the-shelf optical prisms over 10 therapy sessions of 20 minutes each. Essentially, a stroke survivor wears goggles during the session and practices aiming their spatial movements. The therapist will ask the patient to repeatedly point to and touch a dot placed on the table in front of them, or ask the patient to repeatedly mark the center of a line. This appears to correct the rightward-turning tendency after spatial neglect.