Prism adaptation therapy can help stroke patients who have damage to the right hemisphere of their brains

Prism adaptation therapy can help stroke patients who have damage to the right hemisphere of their brains
After a stroke, some individuals suffer from spatial neglect, which occurs when part of the brain is damaged and the person is unable to recognize or respond to stimuli on the right or left half of their bodies. Historically, very few treatments or therapies were known to help those suffering from spatial neglect. New research in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair reveals that a type of therapy known as prism adaptation therapy can help those with spatial neglect following right brain stroke. Prism adaptation therapy requires the patient to wear special goggles that move the visual field laterally or vertically. Since people with spatial neglect are often unaware of their deficit, they can't voluntarily shift their focus. The prism goggles, however, does this shift for them. After two weeks of therapy, researchers with the Kessler Foundation and other universities found that individuals with a subtype of spatial neglect known as motor-intentional neglect showed significant improvement compared to individuals with perceptual-intentional neglect. Researchers say that early intervention and identification of the subtype of neglect is important to improving outcome.

Source and further reading:
http://kesslerfoundation.org/media/displaynews.php?id=446

Journal article: Presence of motor-intentional aiming deficit predicts functional improvement of spatial neglect with prism adaptation. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, 2013. DOI: 10.1177/1545968313516872
Story via Neuroscience Research Techniques 
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