Abstract
Purpose :
Homonymous hemianopia (HH), a visual deficit unique among low vision individuals, drastically affects the ways in which individuals function daily. HH maintains perfect visual acuity while suddenly showing absolute loss in half of one’s visual field without the option of medical intervention. No other vision losses present themselves in this fashion. We sought to understand the impact of HH on various types of daily tasks, testing the hypothesis that different types of tasks affect one's ability to complete them.
Methods :
We used a cross-sectional study design, interviewing 9 participants with visual impairment caused by HH using Qualtrics. The 6 male and 3 female participants had ages ranging from 51-91, with the mean age being 69. The questionnaire administered encompassed a wide range of daily tasks covering the four visual domains: mobility (MO), reading (RE), visual information (VI), and visual motor (VM). The adaptive questionnaire consisted of 26 multiple choice questions split into three sub-questions for each daily task asking the participant: (1) if they perform the given task, (2) if they perform the task with assistance, and (3) how much difficulty they have performing it. The second and third sub-questions were only asked if the participant selected "Yes" to performing the task.
Results :
Using raw score values from the questionnaire, study participants were found to have the most difficulty with MO activities. In six out of eight MO activities, over half of the responses to the difficulty subquestion were either "a little difficult" or "moderately difficult". Most of the other activities had a majority response of "no difficulty", with the exception of three. The only activities that warranted a response of "very difficult" were walking outside one's home (MO), going down unfamiliar steps (MO), and finding an item on a crowded shelf (VI).
Conclusions :
This research contributes valuable insights into the types of activities that HH patients struggle with the most. Healthcare professionals and researchers can use these results to develop targeted interventions aimed at improving the quality of life for individuals with HH and promoting their daily independence. We are continuing to collect data to obtain a sample large enough to perform an analysis of the HAQ’s psychometric properties.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.