Sep 9, 2026 · 59 min · 16 segments
In this very special episode of the podcast, I talk with my wife, Lauren Schwabish, a speech-language pathologist who helps adults recover communication after stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other…
Lauren SchwabischGuest
John SchwabischHost
You mentioned visual field cut, and can you talk just for a second about the different types of vision impairments that your patients have had? Because I think in the database field, there's a bit of an obsession with color vision deficiency, which is not the only visual impairment out there.
So can you describe a little bit more before we get into the tools part, but because you mentioned that phrase visual field cut, can you talk a little bit about the sorts of visual impairments that people have?
And this is going to be the real 101 version because this is its own unique specialty.
And there's professionals, neuro-optometrists, neuro-ophthalmologists, occupational therapists who really specialize in vision and vision changes after brain injury.
But we should also remember that sudden change in vision is a sign of stroke.
So a sudden change in vision can look like missing vision in either one eye or part of each eye, depending on what part of the vision system has been injured.
In terms of the accessibility, we're really looking at visual information processing.
So acuity is like, you know, I'm getting older, I have to wear my readers all the time when I'm looking at fine print, right? Vision changes associated with a stroke is almost as if that visual field, what the brain can actually see is missing.
So
I've had clients that describe it like, I can see, I can't see, I can see, I can't see.
So it's kind of like this interrupted visual field where you have to move your head to get your vision in the right place.
There's also when people have a injury specifically on the right side of their brain, there's a spatial inattention or a visual inattention where the eyes are working.
And the brain can see information, but the attention system is impaired, where they may be hyper attentive to stimuli on one side, and their brain does not see.
And their brain is able to see it when you direct their attention, but it's really an attention system problem.
You mentioned visual field cut, and can you talk just for a second about the different types of vision impairments that your patients have had? Because I think in the database field, there's a bit of an obsession with color vision deficiency, which is not the only visual impairment out there.
So can you describe a little bit more before we get into the tools part, but because you mentioned that phrase visual field cut, can you talk a little bit about the sorts of visual impairments that people have?
And this is going to be the real 101 version because this is its own unique specialty.
And there's professionals, neuro-optometrists, neuro-ophthalmologists, occupational therapists who really specialize in vision and vision changes after brain injury.
But we should also remember that sudden change in vision is a sign of stroke.
So a sudden change in vision can look like missing vision in either one eye or part of each eye, depending on what part of the vision system has been injured.
In terms of the accessibility, we're really looking at visual information processing.
So acuity is like, you know, I'm getting older, I have to wear my readers all the time when I'm looking at fine print, right? Vision changes associated with a stroke is almost as if that visual field, what the brain can actually see is missing.
So
I've had clients that describe it like, I can see, I can't see, I can see, I can't see.
So it's kind of like this interrupted visual field where you have to move your head to get your vision in the right place.
There's also when people have a injury specifically on the right side of their brain, there's a spatial inattention or a visual inattention where the eyes are working.
And the brain can see information, but the attention system is impaired, where they may be hyper attentive to stimuli on one side, and their brain does not see.
And their brain is able to see it when you direct their attention, but it's really an attention system problem.
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