Multisensory Rehabilitation of Vision Loss After Cortical Damage

NCT07659691 | Not Yet Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: IRB00151786
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 30
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Damage to visual cortex on one side of the brain frequently produces a profound and permanent blindness in contralesional space (hemianopia), a debilitating condition that causes enormous suffering for patients and their families.

Conditions

Cortical Blindness

Keywords

hemianopia; blindness; multisensory training

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Change in National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score

  The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is a standardized, 15-item physical and mental examination used by healthcare providers to objectively quantify the severity of an acute stroke. Scores range from 0 (no neurological deficit) to 42 (severe impairment).

  Month 6

• Change in Activity Inventory scores

  A questionnaire that asks how vision affects everyday activities. It helps show which daily tasks are most important to the participant and how difficult those tasks may be because of vision problems. Patients rate the importance of a goal and the difficulty of tasks, resulting in an individually tailored dataset. This adaptive approach provides a comprehensive profile of how visual limitations affect everyday life.

  Month 6

Study Arms (1)

multisensory training

EXPERIMENTAL

At the completion of this initial intervention (12 research sessions + clinical visits at the time of the first and last session), participants will receive a second kinetic visual field test and a 30-2 visual field test to measure any changes according to the clinical standard. Two additional follow-up procedures are scheduled for participants identified as showing visual recovery after the initial intervention. Three months after completing the initial treatment, participants will have an additional research visit. If testing during this visit reveals that vision has degraded from the initial series, participants will be scheduled for 2-5 additional research visits (with testing and training) to reinstate recovery with re-intervention.

Behavioral: Multisensory Rehabilitation

Interventions

Multisensory Rehabilitation BEHAVIORAL

12 research sessions + clinical visits at the time of the first and last session - In each session, there will be a "training phase" in which subjects will be exposed (and respond) to spatiotemporally congruent pairs of visual-auditory stimuli presented within their blinded field, with occasional probes of unisensory visual stimuli on both sides of space. There will also be a "testing" phase during which they are presented with visual stimuli in virtual reality (VR) to assess multiple aspects of visual function. This "visual battery" consists of innocuous stimuli, e.g., flashes of light or moving bars, presented at intensities consistent with those experienced during daily life. Subjects detect or discriminate the stimuli (e.g., judge whether a stimulus was flashed, or which stimulus is brighter) and report confidence in assessments.

Also known as: multisensory training paradigm

multisensory training

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 85 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Patients will be recruited from the local subject population hospitalized/seen by Ophthalmology, Neurosurgery, and Neurology at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist
• diagnosis of stable homonymous hemianopia (\>4 weeks) with absence of hemineglect
• a lesion encompassing at least primary visual cortex but sparing parietal cortex, to include lesions caused by an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke or post-surgical changes due to an oncologic or non-oncologic tumor
• normal or correctable auditory and cognitive function
• willingness to participate in the three-month program
• ability to perform visual discriminations in their intact field
• life expectancy ≥12 months

You may not qualify if:

• diagnosis of an unstable homonymous hemianopia and/or with hemineglect,
• Abnormal or uncorrectable auditory and cognitive function
• unwillingness to participate in the program
• inability to perform the visual testing in their intact field
• life expectancy \< 12 months
• Any other condition that would compromise their ability to complete the study.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Wake Forest University Health Sciences: lead

Study Sites (1)

Wake Forest University Health Sciences

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27157, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Blindness, Cortical; Hemianopsia; Blindness

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Vision Disorders; Sensation Disorders; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Eye Diseases; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

• Benjamin Rowland, PhD

  Wake Forest University Health Sciences

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Kimberly Hawley, RN

CONTACT

3367164031; Kimberly.Hawley@Advocatehealth.org

Wendy Jenkins, BSNRN, CCRC

CONTACT

336.716.3842; Wendy.Jenkins@AdvocateHealth.org

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: A group of 30 hemianopic or quadrantanopic participants - Subjects will participate in weekly research sessions (\~2 hours.) for the next three months. This purposely extends beyond the window of expected recovery.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 15, 2026
• First Posted: June 22, 2026
• Study Start: August 1, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2027
• Last Updated: June 22, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-06

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)