The Effects of a Novel Treatment for Hemianopic Dyslexia on Reading, Symptom Load, and Return to Work

Abstract

Reading disorders are frequent in homonymous hemianopia and are termed hemianopic dyslexia (HD). The existing treatment methods have shown improvements in reading speed, accuracy, and eye movements during reading. Yet, little is known about the transfer effects of such treatments on functional, reading-related tasks of daily life, e.g., reading phone numbers, finding typing errors or text memory. In addition, little is known about the effects on symptom load and return to work. Here, we examined a new reading therapy entailing three different methods—floating text, rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of single words, and the moving window technique—and evaluated their efficacy. Twenty-seven chronic HD patients were treated in a baseline design with treatment-free intervals before and after a treatment period of several months. HD was assessed with a battery of reading tests and a questionnaire about subjective symptom load at four time-points. Patients received all three reading therapies over several weeks. The results show significant and stable improvements during treatment within all measures. Approximately 63% of treated patients returned to work after the therapy. We concluded that our novel HD treatment led to widespread and lasting improvements in reading performance, generalized to functional reading tasks and reduced symptom load, and the majority of patients were able to return to work.

Keywords

• brain damage
• visual field defect
• dyslexia
• treatment
• return to work