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What is visual neglect?
Neglect is inattention of either the right or left visual field. Although it is possible to have right visual neglect, it is far more common to have left visual neglect. Imagine looking down at a piece of paper to begin writing only to have been told that you started in the middle of the paper. Although the vision impairments may not change, strategies can be learned to better improve visual neglect as well as reduce risks associated with visual neglect.
What to do?
If your loved one is experiencing left neglect they could benefit from therapy services such as occupational therapy or speech therapy. Reach out to your insurance company to determine what assistance they can offer. If you are in an area where access is difficult or have limited insurance coverage some of these tips may help.
Tips to improve visual neglect
1. Sitting on their “bad” side when interacting
Although you may not think this is helping them, forcing their brain to recognize the side that it doesn’t want to acknowledge is huge and needs to be done as often as possible. An individual who has neglect to one side of their body will have difficulty eating, dressing… well everything really. Encouraging them to “look to the left” or “look over there” in order to interact is an activity that will encourage and retrain the brain to recognize the neglected side.
2. Placing food on the “good” side
Although it seems backwards to talk on the bad side but eat on the good side, food is IMPORTANT. There is no reason that someone should miss out on half of their meal just because it happened to be placed on the “bad” side and they couldn’t see that they have more food. Nutrition is important in the healing process, placing the plate to the individuals good side will allow for them to see the entire plate. Another strategy is to place food in different bowls and show them what is in each one. They will know that everything is separate and look for the other bowl with the meat or the vegetable for example.
3. Reminding them to “scan” to the bad side
Without visually scanning to the side they aren’t seeing, particularly during the time when they are moving about, your loved one is at a much higher risk for falling as a result of tripping over objects on floor, missing a step or even running into the wall (that one hurts!). A scanning strategy such as reminding them to “look to the left” when they are moving can help prevent falls as long as they are using the strategy consistently. Often times this will not just automatically happen and takes numerous attempts at practicing to look to the left in order to create the awareness and pattern required to maintain their safety.
The longer visual neglect is left unnoticed the more difficult it is to resolve; if it can be resolved at all. So the sooner you address things, the better! Even if visual neglect has already occurred, these tips can be utilized as compensatory strategies for dealing with visual neglect. Early intervention with skilled therapy services remains the only intervention to treat visual neglect so always push for skilled services if you are noticing neglect.
The information you need...Straight Up!
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