The question of whether a car accident can cause vision problems is a complicated one. It can be difficult to separate the effects of an accident from other factors that may have been involved in the injury. For these reasons, it’s important to understand how an accident might affect your eyesight so you can take steps to protect yourself after the fact.

Read on as an Annapolis, MD vision therapy optometrist talks about the types of vision problems that can result from a car accident and how vision therapy can help.

How a Car Accident Can Affect Vision

More often than not, vision problems caused by a car accident are the result of head trauma. In fact, as many as 70% of people who suffer from head trauma will experience some kind of visual impairment.

When head trauma is present, vision problems typically take one of two forms:

Visual acuity and refractive errors (the way your eye focuses light on the retina) – If you have poor visual acuity, it means that you have trouble seeing clearly. You may be able to recognize an object, but only with difficulty. If you have a refractive error, it means that your eye doesn’t bend light properly, so images aren’t focused on the retina and don’t look clear.
Loss or blurring of vision as a result of injury to the eye itself (such as damage to the cornea or optic nerve) – This can result in a decreased ability to see objects clearly or even at all.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, it’s important that you see an eye doctor right away.

How Vision Therapy Can Help

Vision therapy is a treatment program that’s used to help individuals who have vision problems caused by a head injury or traumatic brain injury (TBI). The goal of vision therapy is to improve your ability to see clearly and efficiently by training (or retraining in the case of head trauma) the muscles and nerves in the eyes, brain, and body to work together as they should.

Vision therapy can help with:

Decreased eyesight
Double vision
Poor depth perception
Visual processing issues
Poor focus
Eye movement problems
Decreased color vision
Eyestrain
Headaches

Vision therapy can be used as part of a treatment program to help you get back on track with everyday life, whether it’s during recovery from a head injury or after surgery.

If you have more questions or wish to schedule an eye exam, please don’t hesitate to call us, your local Annapolis, MD vision therapy optometrist, anytime!