Promising Treatment for Headaches and Dizziness Caused by Traumatic Brain Injury
September 28, 2010
Posted by:Jo Chapman
A new study from the USA has found that a number of post-concussion symptoms can be reduced by wearing special glasses.
After a minor head injury many people experience the ongoing symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. Some of the most common and debilitating effects of this condition are headaches, dizziness, anxiety and neck pain, which can have a significant effect on the quality of one's life.
People with these symptoms can be treated with different types of therapy and medication but these treatments are not particularly effective and can take years to complete. Four Michigan physicians studied 43 traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients and found that, in some cases, the post-concussion symptoms can be stopped or reduced by wearing spectacles with specialised lenses containing prisms.
The study found that malfunctioning of the binocular visual system was found to be a single common factor shared by all patients and suggests that TBI appears to be causing visual image misalignment or vertical heterophoria. In other words, the injury disturbs or damages nerves in the brain causing the eyes to align differently, therefore stopping the eyes from working together properly and causing double vision. To correct this misalignment and prevent double vision, the eye muscles work overtime to force the eyes back into proper alignment. The eye muscles then become strained and fatigued, which accounts for many post-concussive symptoms, including headaches, dizziness, anxiety and neck pain. The use of prismatic eyeglass lenses to realign the images and reduce or eliminate eye muscle overwork led to a 71.8 percent reduction of symptoms among the study's participants in an average of three and a half months. This is a ground breaking discovery which could potentially have implications for the treatment of post-concussion symptoms.