Coupling acoustic feedback to eye movements to reduce spatial neglect.

Background: A typical consequence of right hemispheric brain lesions is spatial neglect. Patients with spatial neglect suffer from a variety of neglect phenomena and related disorders, including a sustained shift of the horizontal eye-in-head position toward the affected hemisphere. The aim of this study was to investigate benefits of a method of coupling eye movement to an acoustic feedback.

Methods: Seven outpatients of the Department of Neurology, Medical University of Vienna, with a chronic spatial neglect following a brain lesion took part in the study. The participants underwent a neuropsychological assessment of spatial neglect at baseline after 10 and 15 training sessions and a follow-up after 3 months. Therapy sessions included training of the saccadic and the pursuit eye movement with the help of acoustic feedback.

Results: There were significant improvements of performance in visual exploration, reading, reaction times, and the total score of the conventional subtest of the Behavioral Inattention Test and decreased symptoms of anosognosia. The results stayed stable over a period of 3 months.

Conclusion: Coupling eye movements to acoustic feedback seemed to be a suitable training method to improve visual exploration, reading, and awareness of patients with visual neglect.