Personal Injury Law

Implications of Impaired Eye Movements in Post-concussion Syndrome

By Bruce Stern

I recently read an interesting article in 'Brain' a Journal of Neurology.  The article is entitled 'Impaired eye movements in post-concussion syndrome indicate suboptimal brain function beyond the influence of depression, malingering or intellectual ability'.  The paper was authored by Marcus H. Heitger and his colleagues in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The researchers examined whether post-concussion syndrome patients continued to show disparities in eye movement function at 3-5 months following mild traumatic brain injury as compared with patients who had a good recovery.  The researchers 'hypothesized that eye movements might provide sensitive and objective functional markers of ongoing cerebral impairment in post-concussion syndrome.  Thirty-six PCS participants were matched with thirty-six controls (patients of similar injury severity but good recovery) on reflexive, anti- and self-paced saccades, memory-guided sequences and smooth pursuit.

The researchers found that the PCS group performed worse on anti-saccades, self-paced saccades, memory-guided sequences and smooth pursuit, suggesting problems and response inhibition, short-term spatial memory, motor-sequence programming, visuospatial processing and visual attention. 

The researchers concluded that compared with neuropsychological testing, eye movements were more likely to be markedly impaired in post-concussion syndrome cases with high symptom overload.  'Poorer eye movement function, and particularly poorer subcortical oculomotor function, correlated more with post-concussive symptom load and problems on activities of daily living whilst poorer neuropsychological function exhibited slightly better correlations with measures of mental health.'

Once again, this is another important research study indicating that patients with post-concussion syndrome do not all recover within a short period of time and provides objective evidence of such injury.

Full post as published by Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).