- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet
- In our opinion course Bob.
- I don't like him behind me. I don't trust it, so.
- Yeah.
- Brad, what are we talking about today?
- Strokes and visual neglect.
Okay. - All right.
- Oftentimes with strokes, there's a neglect to one side
because a stroke affects one side of the body physically
as far as strength and range of motion,
but also neglect in regards to vision.
So what we wanna do, this gets pretty complicated
when you get into the nervous system
and we're not gonna get real complicated,
just a simple test you can do at home.
Say one of your family members is
when they walk, they'll bump into the wall
on that involved side
and you wanna get a little more detailed
on what they can and what they can't see
on the side of the periphery.
- There can be two things Brad,
one, they might actually have a actual field cut,
where they don't see anything over there at all.
- Hm mm.
- And two, they might actually see things over there
but they neglect to see it.
- Right.
- And it's too hard to explain all this,
but either way, they're not registering
what's going on on one side.
- Right.
It's kind of like when you're walking with them,
they'll bump into the wall, but then they'll say,
geez, I could see it,
but I just wasn't paying attention to it.
- Right. - Okay.
- Neglected.
- So what you're gonna have is the person sit in the chair.
And look straight ahead.
Pick a object out, whether it's say a doorknob
or something on the wall, a picture,
and they're gonna look straight ahead.
- All right. So I'm staring right at the camera.
- Okay. Focusing right at the camera
and what the tester does, you take an object.
I just have a roll of red duct tape,
something that they can clearly see
and sticks out a little bit.
And I'm gonna go from on the right side and on the left
and I'm go three different quadrants.
One is up here.
One is in the middle
and one is low here and then the same on this side.
So Bob's looking straight ahead
and he's gonna point now,
if he's had a stroke and it was on the left side,
his left arm may not be able to point.
So he is going to point with his right hand where it is.
So if it's over here, he is gonna point up over there.
If it's down here, when he sees it, he's going to point
in the direction that he sees the object.
Are you ready, Bob?
- I'm ready.
- Okay. And I'm not gonna tell him where I'm going
and it may be varied okay?
Okay. And I'm gonna make a mental note how far I go forward.
Okay.
Good. And you might get a little tricky,
maybe do the same one twice.
Okay.
Now, if Bob did have a stroke,
he may see something like this.
Okay. We might come around.
- I still might not even see it.
- Right. Until you cross the midline.
- Yeah. Here's the midline,
if you drew a line right down the center of me
and I might not see it until it crosses over.
- Right. So you're gonna get a good idea
of what the person can actually see.
So when you're walking with them, you have a better idea
of maybe this is a really bad and neglected side
or they can't see it.
Also when you're walking down the sidewalk
or in public, you're gonna be on that side of 'em.
- They're gonna be at risk for hitting things on that side.
- Right.
- So you're gonna want to know this.
- Sure.
- This is information that is important.
- You bet.
And if you wanna get technical, just take a piece
of paper down and put the three,
or put those six locations down with a little sketch
and draw which ones they can see or where they can't see.
And then approximately how far forward they are.
And then maybe three months down the road
you can compare it again
and see if they've gotten any better.
- Because a lot of times they will.
- Sure.
- A lot of times they do improve, so.
- Yeah. So a simple thing you can do at home.
Take your time with it
and keep on working with those family members and friends.
They'll get better.
- Thanks a lot.
Thanks for watching.