Abstract
Purpose: :
To assess if patients diagnosed with visual deficits from acquired brain injuries (ABI) are symptomatic for dry eye syndrome (DES).
Methods: :
Fifty patients with ABI and subsequent visual deficits were surveyed using a validated questionnaire for dry eyes, the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI). The OSDI is comprised of 12 questions that are scored on a 5 point scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (always) and with a range of scores from 0 (none) to 100 (extremely severe). An OSDI score of 13 and greater is considered symptomatic for DES. The proportion of ABI patients who scored ≥ 13 was calculated overall and also by the type of visual deficit acquired (ocular motor dysfunction, binocular vision disorder, accommodative dysfunction, and visual spatial disorientation).
Results: :
Of the 50 patients, 82% were symptomatic for DES, with an overall mean score of 38.57 (range of 2.27 - 87.5) with a standard deviation of 22.49. Patients with visual spatial disorientation were the most symptomatic with 84.2% of patients scoring 13 and above on the OSDI, followed by binocular vision disorder at 80.9%, then ocular motor dysfunction at 78.5%, and lastly accommodative dysfunction at 55.6%.
Conclusions: :
In our small sample, DES symptomatology is commonly found in patients who have incurred visual deficits associated with ABI. Current studies show that approximately 25% of the general population is symptomatic for DES. This information may suggest that visual deficits can play a role in DES symptoms, however further research is needed in this area to show a causative linkage between visual deficits and DES in the ABI population.
Keywords: cornea: tears/tear film/dry eye • binocular vision/stereopsis • trauma