Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify at least five visual functions that may influence occupational performance following acquired brain injury beyond visual acuity alone.

2. Recognize at least five bedside behaviors that may suggest vision is contributing to difficulty with ADLs, mobility, posture, reaching, scanning, or attention.

3. Differentiate between three broad causes of visually related task failure: inability to see the information, inability to attend to the information, and inability to efficiently use the visual information to guide action.

 

4. Apply an Observe → Modify → Reassess strategy to determine whether changing one visual variable alters functional performance.

 

5. Describe at least three ways visual information may be used therapeutically to support posture, reaching, scanning, movement, attention, or occupational performance.

 

6. Use the "5 M's of Inpatient Vision" framework to identify patients who may benefit from additional visual assessment or interdisciplinary neuro-optometric consultation.

 

7. Describe the complementary roles of occupational therapy and neuro-optometry in the rehabilitation of patients with acquired brain injury.

 

 

 

Amy Thomas, OD, FOVDR, COEP, is a neurocognitive optometrist, international lecturer, and the clinical director of Arizona Vision Therapy Center in Tucson, Arizona. Her clinical work focuses on functional vision, acquired brain injury, neuro-optometric rehabilitation, binocular vision, ocular motor function, sensory integration, and the relationship between visual processing and whole-body function.

Dr. Thomas has a particular interest in helping rehabilitation professionals understand how vision interacts with posture, movement, balance, attention, sensory processing, and occupational performance. She regularly collaborates with occupational therapists and other rehabilitation professionals to identify visual barriers that may interfere with recovery and to develop interdisciplinary strategies that support functional outcomes.

She is the creator of the Neural Neighbors™ and Brain-Based Optometric Toolbox™ educational frameworks, which are designed to help clinicians better understand the relationships between visual function, neural systems, and rehabilitation. Her teaching emphasizes practical clinical observation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the use of measurable functional change to guide treatment decisions.

Her goal is to help therapists recognize when vision may be limiting a patient's performance—and when visual input can be used thoughtfully to help move rehabilitation forward.