Eye movement assessments are becoming more popular in modern medicine, especially in regards to the assessment of brain function. Evaluating eye movements has a number of benefits in studying brain function and neurological disorders. Below are just a few of many reasons why our clinicians at The Neurologic Wellness Institute digitally record and graph out every patient’s eye movements and have studied thousands of hours on the neurology behind eye movements.
Benefit #1 for Evaluating Eye Movements
Eye movements use a wide range of areas in the brain including areas in the cerebral cortex, the brainstem, and the cerebellum. Because so many areas of the brain can be assessed examining eye movements, these tests are sensitive to pick up problems in a variety of regions in the brain.
Benefit #2 for Evaluating Eye Movements
There are a number of different eye movements that can be assessed, and each type of eye movement uses unique areas of the brain. Understanding the unique areas of the brain these eye movements use as well as the areas of the brain these eye movements share, allows clinicians to be able to accurately localize which area in the brain is dysfunctional.
Benefit #3 for Evaluating Eye Movements
Eye movements are very well studied and we know a great deal about how they work. Unlike the muscles in the body where if one muscle is weak another muscle can compensate and help out, the eye muscles do not work this way making eye movement problems very easy to detect when they are present. There is also an increasing amount of technology now available to digitally record eye movements to ensure proper findings.
Benefit #4 for Evaluating Eye Movements
There are certain eye movement disorders associated with specific neurological disorders. Eye movement disorders may be apparent early on in the progression of many conditions, sometimes even before symptoms appear, and may be used as an early diagnostic test to initiate proper treatment and be used as an objective marker to monitor progress. For example, if you have an eye movement disorder associated with a neurological condition and we begin treatment, if the treatment is effective we may expect to see the eye movement disorder improve. If the treatment is not effective the eye movement disorder will not improve or possibly get worse with time.
For more information on the type of conditions, our clinicians help with, schedule a consult with one of our patient care coordinators.
