People may suffer from visual impairment even though their eyes are perfectly normal. Such loss of vision may result from neurological impairment.

Vision is the combination of image formation and perception of various attributes of the image by the brain. When the brain is not able to perceive images or various attributes of images, the patient may suffer from neurological impairment of vision. Such impairment owes its origin to the nervous system.

Causes of Visual Impairment:

There are various areas in the brain that process some or the other attribute of the image that has formed on the retina. Occipital cortex, the area situated at the rear side of the brain is a very important site. It is responsible for processing visual stimuli and allowing people to make an idea about shape, distance, movement, color, etc. The severity of loss of vision depends on the extent and location of damage in the brain.

Neurological loss of vision may result from acquired brain injury, difficulties with visual perception, impairment in coordination of the eyes, etc. All these may stem from damage areas in the brain that are responsible for vision. There are many areas in the brain that are responsible for vision.

These areas can get damaged from various accidents like:

Stroke: If a person suffers a stroke, a part of his or her brain is likely to get damaged due to a haemorrhage or a blocked blood vessel.

Traumatic Brain Injury: A traumatic brain injury such as in a car accident or a violent fall can damage visual perception of the brain.

Infections: Infections such as meningitis attack the brain and may impair various areas of it.

Lack of Oxygen: People may suffer from lack of oxygen if they experience accidents like a near-drowning episode or a heart attack or something else, which has the effect of interrupting blood flow to the brain.

Diseases: Diseases such as brain tumors, multiple sclerosis etc. can precipitate neurological vision loss.

Symptoms of Visual Impairment:

Symptoms of neurological vision loss depend on the type of vision impairment and the location of damage in the brain. It may include:

Blurry vision: In Blurry vision, a person will not see things clearly or may see something in light but find it difficult to see them in dim light.

Double vision: In double vision, the patient sees a single object as two and cannot merge them as one.

Problems with depth perception of objects

Problem with bright light: In this type of problem, a person experiences difficulty seeing an object in a bright light. One may also feel pain or discomfort in the eye in bright light.

Difficulty with interpreting the object the person is looking at

Partial loss in the visual field: In this problem, half of the visual field in each eye is missing.

Treatment of Visual Impairment:

There is hardly any treatment for such vision loss since the rectification of visual acuity is of no help. Depending on the location and degree of neurological impairment, vision may improve over time. Some children with acquired brain injury or impairment in the coordination of the eyes and difficulties with visual perception also tend to improve with age.

Conclusion:

This is a type of vision loss where glasses, contact lenses, surgeries, or eye drops are not going to help. Such vision loss is usually permanent. Children with similar symptoms need to be presented with pictures, bright light, etc., which may help to form an idea about the object.

Visual Impairment Related To Nervous System!

There are many common measures people take to improve their eyesight or to improve their vision, including wearing glasses, lenses, and many more. Here are some effective exercises, which can prove to be highly beneficial to improve your eye health:

1. Stretching
This is the most common and also one of the easiest to do. It requires you to just look up, hold for two seconds, look down, hold for two seconds and then repeat this procedure for each corner of your eye, which means top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right corners.

2. Flexing
This is simply rotating your eyes in circles. Roll your eyes in the clockwise direction for one minute and then roll your eyes in the anticlockwise direction for one minute.

3. Focus switching
This particular eye exercise is probably the most useful one to improve eye health. In this eye exercise, you have to hold something at a reading distance and cover the other eye. You then have to find something that is at least twenty feet away and trace its shape with one eye closed. With one eye closed, trace more shapes, which are twenty feet away.

4. Palming
This exercise is also very simple to perform. All you have to do is cover your eyes with your palms. Once you have done this, just wait and see that there are no bright flashes of light. If you see that there is a bright flash of light, just wait till they go. This is used primarily to distress the eyes.

5. Deep blinking
This is also an incredibly useful exercise for distance vision. What you have to do is to place some large letters are at a fair distance and then sit on a chair. You have to then close your eyes and tighten all your muscles for 5 seconds. After 5 seconds are over, you have to open your eyes and then you have to see the letters for a second or two. The more number of times you do this, the more clearly you will be able to see the letters after reopening your eyes.

However, these eye exercises are not universally accepted by all doctors.

Exercises to Improve Eye Health

If your eyes suddenly look reddish and feel extremely itchy, you may be suffering from allergic conjunctivitis. Allergic conjunctivitis is triggered by exposure to allergens like pollen or mold spores. An allergy to eye drops or contact lens solution can also trigger this condition. Allergic conjunctivitis is a very common health condition and more common during the hay fever season.

There are two types of allergic conjunctivitis; acute allergic conjunctivitis and chronic allergic conjunctivitis. Acute allergic conjunctivitis is characterized by the swelling of eyelids and intense itchiness and burning. Amongst the two, this is a more common condition. Chronic allergic conjunctivitis can occur during any season and has symptoms that come and go. It is a milder response to allergens such as dust, food, pollen, chemical scents etc.

On presenting the symptoms of conjunctivitis to a doctor, he may ask for an allergy skin test, a blood test or a scraping of the conjunctival tissue to understand the type of conjunctivitis you are suffering from. Allergic conjunctivitis can be treated with a combination of medication and home care.

Antihistamines are the most common form of treatment for this disease. This can reduce and block the release of histamines in the body. Artificial eye drops may also be used to create a screen over the eye and prevent the eye from coming in contact with the allergen. Eye drops may also be used to shrink swollen blood vessels in the eye. Steroid eye drops may also be used along with anti inflammatory eye drops.

Home care to treat allergic conjunctivitis focuses on preventing the trigger. Today, apps on your phone can update you n the pollen levels in the air. Close your windows every time you notice a higher than normal pollen count and keep your home as dust free as possible. You could also use an air purifier in your home. Also, avoid exposure to strong chemicals, dyes, perfumes etc.

To avoid the condition from worsening, avoid rubbing your eyes and wash your hands every time you touch your eyes. Disinfect your towels, sheets and pillowcases that come in contact with your eyes every few days with hot water. Wash eyes with cold water twice daily especially after coming home from outside. Do not share your make up or brushes with other people. This is a healthy habit to follow even when you are not suffering from this condition. While you suffer from pink eye you should also not wear contact lenses. Once the eye has healed, discard the old lenses and replace them with a new pair.

Allergic Conjunctivitis - How It Can Be Treated?

Glaucoma: An Overview
This disease can be developed or inherited; it usually refers to the accumulation of fluid inside a person's eyes leading to excessive pressure on his or her optic nerve.

How to Diagnose the Symptoms of Glaucoma-

A Fundamental Eye Examination: An experienced eye doctor will check the dilated pupils of your eyes so as to take a closer look at the optic nerve that further discerns the stage of glaucoma a patient is in. Doctors tend to keep track on the sequential progression of glaucoma and its specific mode of treatment through pictures of the optic nerve taken during an examination.

Tonometry may also be performed:Signs of Glaucoma may be spotted through the procedure called tonometry where the doctor will test a person's eye pressure and so on so forth. A visual field test might also be conducted to check if the patient can see things at the periphery of his line of vision. 

Symptoms that will help a doctor identify this condition in people:-

A loss of peripheral vision is experienced in the early stages of glaucoma.
A person may see halos when in the presence of bright lights.
Your eyes could turn red.
Hazy or blurry vision is a problem faced by young children affected with glaucoma.
Glaucoma could be accompanied by headaches and eye pain.
An affected person might repeatedly feel nauseous.
Ways to Treat Glaucoma:-

Microsurgery can effectively treat Glaucoma: Microsurgery can be performed in various ways. There is one way in which a channel is made to pump out the fluid creating extra pressure on the optic nerve. This method is referred to as trabeculectomy.

Eye Drops: Eye drops can relieve you from painful glaucoma. They are known to control the formation of excess fluid in a person's eye. In some cases, they can induce the accumulating fluid to flow out of the patient's eyes.

Laser Treatment: Laser surgeries can be undertaken to get rid of glaucoma. Laser can help in moving out fluid from the eyes of the affected person. It successfully hinders fluid blockage as well. There are different kinds of laser treatments available to cure glaucoma.

Diagnosis and Treatment for Glaucoma

With technology at your fingertips, it is hard to think of times when the existence of laptops and television sets was unimaginable. Technology is common enough to be taken for granted in present times. TV and laptops are especially in widespread use. The primary reason could be entertainment, an urge to connect to the larger world, or the need to kill time. Such dependability leads to severe health hazards. Read on to find out more:

Effects of TV and laptops on your health:

    Sleep deprivation: Long hours of exposure to artificial light can lead to sleep deprivation.
    It can also lead to serious vision problems: Watching TV or using laptops for long hours can make your eyes vulnerable to constant glare. You fail to realize, but changing lights of a computer screen or of a television set in a dark room can be extremely strenuous for your eyes to adjust. Constantly changing lights can lead to glaucoma. However, dry and itchy eyes, headaches and poor vision are the commonly noticed effects.
    It causes obesity in children and adults: Since all your work can be done on the internet, you tend to become lethargic. You are too lazy to go to the market or to the bank. Even if you are not watching you use the television for background music. Adults therefore do not make qualitative use of their free time. Children are addicted to playing games and browsing sites on the laptop. They hardly indulge in outdoor games. This leads to obesity in adults and children all the same.
    Propels your desire to eat fast food or packaged food: Binge eating is a very common practice while watching TV or using laptops. Chips, pizzas, burgers, ice- creams, cold drinks and absolutely anything junk devoid of nutritional value are more liked by us. Junk food not only leads to weight gain but is also detrimental to our digestive system.
    Can increase the risk of infertility in men: Laptops heat up when used for a long span of time. This heat can increase scrotum temperature which results in reduced sperm production, leading to infertility.   

As is said, nothing in excess is good for your health. It is therefore, best to make controlled use of TV and laptops to avoid its harmful effects.

Watching TV and Using Laptop: How it Affects Your Health?

Glaucoma is a group of diseases that causes damage to your eye's optic nerve and gets worse over time. The optic nerve is a bundle of millions of nerve fibres which carry visual impulse from the retina at the back of eye to the brain. The increased eye pressure, called intraocular pressure, can damage the optic nerve and fasten the natural nerve fibre loss. Since nerve cells can't regenerate this damage is permanent and irreversible.

Without treatment, glaucoma can cause total permanent blindness within a few years. Because most people with glaucoma have no early symptoms or pain from this increased pressure, it is important to see your eye doctor regularly so that glaucoma can be diagnosed early and treated before significant functional visual loss occurs.

If you are over age 40 and have a family history of glaucoma, you should have a complete eye exam with an eye doctor every one to two years. If you have any risk factors, you may need to visit your eye doctor more frequently.

What are the symptoms of glaucoma?

For most people, there are usually few or no symptoms of glaucoma. The first sign of glaucoma is often the loss of peripheral or side vision, which can go unnoticed until late in the disease. This is why glaucoma is often called the" sneak thief of vision" or" silent thief of eye sight.

If you have any of the following symptoms, seek immediate medical care:

Seeing halos around lights
Vision loss
Redness in the eye
Eye that looks hazy (particularly in infants)
Nausea or vomiting
Pain in the eye
Narrowing of vision (tunnel vision)
Risk factors-

There are several risk factors, which may lead to glaucoma, such as

Age of the individual
Ethnicity- african, caribbean, hispanics and asians are at higher risk
Increased eye pressure or iop history of glaucoma in family or relatives
Presence of myopia or hyperopia
Previous eye injuries
Use of steroids- as injections, tablets, eye or ear drops or ointments or protein supplements for muscle building in gyms or inhalers
Previous history of anemia
Individuals conditions affecting blood flow like hypertension, diabetes or high blood sugar, migraine etc are also at risk.
Treatment-

The treatment for glaucoma relies on the nature and seriousness of every case. Generally, glaucoma cannot be totally cured, but it can be controlled. Eye drops, pills, laser strategies, and means of surgery are utilized to maintain and prevent further harm from happening. Talk to your eye doctor to find out if you are at risk of developing glaucoma.

Are You at a Risk of Glaucoma? What You Need to Know?

Don't wait any longer, manage your Ophthalmologist online with a Lybrate doctor today

Consult for Ophthalmologist - Online and Easy!

FilterClear All

COMMON SPECIALITIES

COMMON ISSUES