9-year-old female with learning difficulties sees immediate improvement in school performance after precise head-eye vestibular motion therapy
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Dr. Shannon Leon Functional Neurology, United States
Presentation
This patient presents with continued struggles in school performance following sixteen weeks at a nearby vision center of approximately 32-48 visits that were based on extensive evidence-based clinical outcome assessments. She was also recommended progressive bifocals and ten additional lifestyle modifications, most of which obligate her teachers with further responsibility. Patient’s history includes one episode of trauma to the head via fall on ice about four years prior. Clinical examination in our office revealed left sided pronator drift, dysmetric left finger-to-nose, left eye accommodation in neutral gaze, low vertical pursuit gain, saccadic intrusions when transitioning from up-gaze to down-gaze, resting nystagmus beating up-right and down-right, and decreased postural stability with head tilts toward left posterior semicircular canal and the left otolith.
Intervention
Treatments served to give salubrious neuronal input to the patient’s left cerebellar-right cerebral physiology. Vestibular therapies such as a left barbecue maneuver and two complimentary Epley maneuvers were combined with up-left Brock string, left field of view finger-nose-finger with patient’s left hand, and repetitive somatosensory evoked potentials of the left hypoglossal muscle.
Outcome
After one treatment, patient returned the following week with news that she scored 100% on her latest test. Re-examination shows an absent pronator drift, accurate finger-to-nose, and smooth pursuit tracking through entirety of H-pattern, with pursuit gain approximating 1. Amid current treatment plan at our clinic, this patient and her guardians and teachers continue to remark of positive progress academically and socially.
Perspective
This case illustrates the validity of quality over quantity. Despite a battery of evidence-based testing the subsequent treatment paradigms for this patient produced a nil result (better than negative). Our treatment adapted to concurrent biomarkers which when summated reveal via their controlled objects the precise central locations of lesions, thereby allowing deduction of that patient’s best avenue of therapy. We assert that a wide swath of approximate therapies are inferior to the purposeful few and exact, and that consistent observation is vital to allow for proper, accurate, and reproducible interventions.
Keywords:
Learning Disabilities (LD),
Head eyes coordination,
balance,
carrick eye exercises,
Head- and eye movement
Conference:
International Symposium on Clinical Neuroscience, Orlando, United States, 24 May - 26 May, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Clinical Neuroscience
Citation:
Leon
S and
Langhough
J
(2019). 9-year-old female with learning difficulties sees immediate improvement in school performance after precise head-eye vestibular motion therapy.
Front. Neurol.
Conference Abstract:
International Symposium on Clinical Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fneur.2019.62.00022
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Received:
30 Mar 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
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Correspondence:
Dr. Jason Langhough, Dr. Shannon Leon Functional Neurology, Woodbury, Minnesota, 11797, United States, j.langhough@gmail.com