Affiliations: Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Saarland University,
Saarbrücken, Germany | Neurologische Klinik, Bad Aibling, Germany | Neurological rehabilitation clinic, Ulm University,
Germany | EKN-Neuropsychology Research Group, Hospital
Bogenhausen, München, Germany
Note: [] Corresponding author: Prof. Dr. G. Kerkhoff, Clinical
Neuropsychology Unit, Saarland University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Postbox
15 11 50; D-66041 Saarbrücken, Germany. E-mail:
kerkhoff@mx.uni-saarland.de
Abstract: Purpose: To evaluate whether repetitive optokinetic stimulation with
active pursuit eye movements leads to substantial and greater recovery from
visual neglect as compared to conventional visual scanning training. Methods: Two groups of five patients with leftsided hemineglect were
consecutively collected and matched for clinical and demographic variables as
well as neglect severity. One group received five treatment sessions of
repetitive optokinetic stimulation (R-OKS) within one week, while the other
group received the same amount of conventional visual scanning training (VST)
using identical visual stimuli and setup. All patients were treated in a
single-subject baseline design with treatment-free intervals before (14 days)
and after specific neglect therapy (14 days). Dependent variables were the
improvements in digit cancellation, visuoperceptual and visuomotor line
bisection and visual size distortion during treatment. The transfer of
treatment effects was assessed by a paragraph reading test. Results: The results showed superior effects of OKS treatment in all
five patients which generalized across all tasks administered and remained
stable at follow-up. In contrast, no significant improvements were obtained
after VST training in any of these tasks, except in line bisection. Conclusion: We conclude that the presentation of moving visual
stimulus displays with active smooth pursuit eye movements can be more
efficient than conventional visual scanning training using static visual
displays.
